The Tribune

By KHALILA NICOLLS

khalilanicolls@gmail.com

LAST month I reluctantly attended a prayer breakfast for the 73rd annual meeting of the Bethel Baptist Association. I went as a guest of the Royal Bank of Canada, which hosted media personalities at the event. I intended to honour the invitation, but dip in and out of the event, because I had a busy Sunday planned.

Thankfully, all did not go according to plan, because the message delivered by featured speaker Dr Xernona Clayton, founder and chief executive officer of the Trumpet Awards Foundation, was a blessing to receive.

Dr Clayton paved the way for black television personalities like Oprah Winfrey and others, as the first black person in the Southern United States to have her own prime time television talk show, 'The Xernona Clayton' show. She was the highest ranking female executive in the Turner Network System that includes CNN, Headline News and TBS, serving as corporate executive for more than 30 years.

Her successful media career was no doubt endearing, but above all, I was inspired by her memory of the American civil rights and desegregation movement.

Dr Clayton worked closely with Dr Martin Luther King Jr and his wife, serving them both as a confidant and lifelong friend. She described three powerful and prophetic moments in Dr King's life, leading up to his assassination on the second floor balcony, outside room 306, on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tennessee.

As Dr Clayton recounts, she drove Dr King to the Atlanta airport for his fatal trip to Memphis. In the car, they spoke about the bizarre behaviour of Dr King's children, his two sons in particular.

"Martin picked up his briefcase and the boys came and said, 'daddy don't go'. He said, 'oh I'll be back'. Then one of them grabbed his briefcase and said, 'daddy please don't leave us'. We finally got out the front door, headed down the steps; they ran out down the steps and blocked him and said, 'daddy please don't leave us'. He said, 'Don't worry, I am coming right back'. We got down to the car and they slammed the door to prevent him, still pleading. We finally got the door open and then he got in and they jumped on the roof of my car," said Dr Clayton.

They shook the children off the hood of the car and drove off, leaving them in the driveway pleading. Dr Clayton said Dr King had never seen his children behave in such a manner, and noted that he had to spend more time with them on his return.

The day before Dr King travelled to Memphis, Dr Clayton said the family spent the day together, playing the piano, enjoying the intergenerational company. Dr King's mother, Alberta Williams King, spoke with Dr Clayton that night, petitioning, as an understanding albeit jealous mother would, to have more such opportunities for the family to be together.

Dr King responded with a conciliatory laugh when Dr Clayton informed him that she had committed more time on his behalf to his mother upon his return. On the afternoon of April 4, around 3pm, Dr King called his mother to chat with her on the phone, said Dr Clayton, describing the uncustomary phone call.

Speaking to the third prophetic occasion, Dr Clayton described a conversation between Mrs Coretta Scott King and Dr King about a bouquet of roses.

Dr King bought Mrs King's artificial roses for her April 27th birthday before he left for Memphis. When the couple spoke on the phone on April 4, Dr King asked his wife if she liked the roses he left, said Dr Clayton. She confirmed receipt of the flowers, but expressed her displeasure about the fact that they were artificial, which was so uncustomary. Dr King said he was not sure he would return from his trip in time for her April 27th birthday, but he wanted her to have her roses, said Dr Clayton.

Shedding light on those precious moments of history, Dr Clayton said her journey with the Kings reminds her about the urgency of now. When Dr King left for his trip, he had planned to come back.

"All of this coming back. He had planned to come back," said Dr Clayton.

"The reality that tomorrow is not promised is very real. Don't put it off; do it now, because you know the rest of that story," she said.

Reflecting on her journey, Dr Clayton said it was amazing to think that some of her most blessed experiences came from moments that could never be planned. Dr Clayton said someone could orchestrate meeting Dr King, but how could one plan to be his confidante? She said someone could plan to meet billionaire media mogul Ted Turner, but who could plan "to be in his environs and get directed by his leadership and get unthinkable assignments."

"College did not tell me that was going to happen," said Dr Clayton.

"I became a part of history unknowingly, unplanned," she said.

On Dr King's final birthday, January 15, 1968, Dr Clayton was called to Ebenezer Baptist Church to "make him laugh." He was reportedly down in spirit, still feeling the backlash from his courageous anti-war speech the year before. Dr Clayton was home primping, in no mood to play jester, so she grudgingly threw on a convenient, yet "rotten, ugly, old suit" that she kept in her closet, because it never wrinkled.

At the church Dr Clayton was invited to present Dr King with a faux birthday present.

"Here are some shoe string potatoes, because you go to jail all the time, so next time you'll have something to munch on," said Dr Clayton, recounting how Dr King fell about laughing.

There was a television crew filming a documentary on Dr King at Ebenezer, unbeknown to Dr Clayton, when she was dressing for the occasion. They cranked out the entire episode and included clips from the church in the final documentary, with Dr Clayton, in her ugly old suit on Dr King's final birthday.

"Now if I could have planned my national moment to be famous, I would have put on a pretty dress," said Dr Clayton.

Inside all of her memories, her many blessings, Dr Clayton said there are many lessons. They made me think about a fundamental question: How does one plan to be great? The only answer that seems real is, you don't. Now the question, how does one achieve greatness, is another thing. Fundamentally, according to Dr Clayton, you have to make the day count, every morning you wake having received the breath of life.

"When I get up in the morning and I realize I am she who is up, that is a good day," said Dr Clayton.

"Each of us is given by God some form of talent. You have got to take what you got and make it what you want," she said.

When people ask her to speculate about when the next MLK is coming, Dr Clayton said she asks them to suppose Dr King asked the same question.

"Suppose he had been sitting around waiting for a messiah; waiting for leadership; waiting for someone who was willing to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Supposed he had waited?" she said.

"There is always a need to fill: Find it and fill it. There is a problem out there: find a way to solve it. If somebody's hurting, find a way to soothe them. If someone's in pain, find a way to comfort them. Every day, get up and do something," said Dr Clayton.

"Our society needs all of us to do something; make your moment count; make your life important; make your life measurable so that when you do die, because you are going to die, that we may remember you the same way we remember everybody else who did something good for somebody else. Our society needs all of us to do something," she said.

Read the Watchwoman on Tuesdays in the Tribune's Woman Section and follow Noelle Khalila online at Twitter.com/noelle_elleon.