Tag Archives: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Breakfast with a not-so-famous Tony Bennett

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It’s easier than it’s ever been to become famous. In my formative years before the advent of the Internet
overnight success was non-existent. Still, back then a lot of little boys grew up wanting to become a well-known president, and girls dreamed of being a famous movie star or the wife of someone important. When feminism hit in the seventies, a lot of young women also decided they wanted to be president. I’ll bet not too many young people today would desire the notoriety of the oval office, but that’s a whole other blog post.

Celebrity has never been a huge draw for me. Of course, it would be great to win a Pulitzer Prize like poet Sylvia Plath, or a Nobel Peace Prize like civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Yet like many renowned people, fame exacted a tremendous cost. The brilliant Plath took her own life, and the inspirational Dr. King was senselessly slain for his convictions.

Anyway, dependent on the size of your pond, there will always be a more famous fish. More importantly, if you climb to the top of the ladder, there’s a good chance you will have to experience the long climb down more than once.

For example, famed singer Tony Bennett was definitely not at the top of his game, when I served him breakfast in the late 1970s. I first saw the musical legend early in the morning, as he sat waiting for a server at the former Cascade Holiday Inn in Akron, Ohio. He was alone, reading his newspaper for what seemed like an eternity, while the small group of waitresses where I worked, argued about who should wait on him.

My co-workers seemed awed by his celebrity, so nobody wanted to take his table. I assumed the poor man was hungry, and even though he wasn’t in my section, I volunteered. Mr. Bennett needed breakfast, and I was a struggling college student with more than a few real problems in need of a good tip.

Honestly, I had almost no idea who he was. By then, his career was in a downward spiral. Two of his mid-70s albums had failed to gain popular success, and he had parted ways with his record label. I had heard of his 1962 hit, “I left my heart in San Francisco,” but was too young to be impressed.

Sadly, I took the singer’s order for Eggs Benedict and served him without even acknowledging that I knew who he was. The talented performer was very polite, and I should have at least complimented him on his incredible voice. Thankfully, Bennett didn’t need my affirmation, because the test of time has proven his enduring talent. By 1986, with a new album and his son as manager, the Italian crooner was back on the map, and more Grammys would eventually follow.

There were also celebrity duets for the famous tenor, probably the most notable was when he teamed up with Lady Gaga. His 2014 CD with her titled, “Cheek to Cheek” won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. A couple years later, came his dreadful diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Still, Lady G is reported to have remained friends with her unlikely duet partner to the very end.

Bennett was an artist extraordinaire in more ways than one, because he was also known for his paintings.  With his wife, Susan Benedetto, the singer founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts where Susan once served as both a teacher and an assistant principal. The world lost this 96-year-old gentle giant of a man on July 21st, which is why I wanted to pay tribute to him one last time with this post.

After all, it’s been over four decades since that fated breakfast, and meeting the amazing performer was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ve always regretted my omission of not expressing my gratitude to him for the importance of his musical contribution. Especially, when he was at the bottom of his game. The truth is, I was a troubled kid back then at the bottom of my game, too.

So, Tony Bennett, I would like to publicly apologize to you for not realizing that you and I were both only in a temporary slump. Your music would end up bringing more joy to our world than you could have imagined.  I read online that your last words were the very ones I wish I would have had a chance to say, “Thank you.” It’s reported you said them to your son, Danny, but I want to take this final opportunity to say them to you, “Thank you, Tony Bennett. Rest in peace. You made the world a more beautiful place by being here!”

http://www.christinaryanclaypool.comChristina Ryan Claypool is an Amy and Ohio AP award-winning freelance journalist and speaker. She has been featured on CBN’s 700 Club and Joyce Meyer Ministries Enjoying Everyday Life TV show. Her inspirational novel, “Secrets of the Pastor’s Wife” is available on Amazon and all major online outlets. Contact her through her website at www.christinaryanclaypool.com.

A final good-bye and last words

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Most often when people die suddenly, it comes as a terrible shock to those left behind. There is no warning or opportunity to say “good-bye.” Yet occasionally, there seems to be a supernatural sense that one will soon be departing this world. For instance, on July 7, 2016, Sergeant Mike Smith was one of the five Dallas police officers who died in a brutal massacre. Fifty-five-year-old Smith had been part of the Dallas Police department for 28 years. Following the policeman’s death, his daughter Caroline made news nationwide when the nine-year-old courageously shared his special good-bye to her before leaving for work that day. “What if this is the last time you ever kiss me or hug me?” Sgt. Smith had asked Caroline.

“That was probably the first time he ever said that,” the grief-stricken child told TV reporter, Omar Villafranca. Fighting back tears, she added that her father’s good-bye kiss was unusual, too. “It just felt different to me. I felt something bad was going to happen.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. possibly had an awareness that his time on Earth might also be short. In the civil rights leader’s famous sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” that he delivered two months before his April 4, 1968, assassination, there was a prophetic foretelling.

“And every now and then I think about my own death and I think about my own funeral,” said Dr. King Jr., and near the end of the message. “… And every now and then I ask myself, ‘What is it that I would want said?’” Often, we only write about this dynamic leader during January when we celebrate the national holiday that honors his birthday or during February’s Black History month. For me, Dr. King Jr. is a role model all year long. This started, because of a long-ago conversation with a man incarcerated in an Ohio prison. “I don’t relate to those people you are using for examples of inspiring individuals who have bettered their lives,” said the young Black prisoner candidly.

Spending more than four years as a female prerelease speaker in the male prison system, I rarely had one-on-one conversations with inmates and never without staff present. That morning, this inmate could have corrected my oversight publicly during the question and answer session that followed my presentation to a large group at a medium security Ohio prison. But not wanting to embarrass me, he waited patiently until he could address me alone with only the social worker present. “Who would you relate to?” I asked, earnestly wanting to understand.

“People like me, who are Black, and maybe poor, or who have overcome problems more like mine,” he suggested. Instantly, I realized my illustrations of those who had overcome adversity to lead successful lives weren’t relatable. Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Edison might have had real obstacles, but they were white men in another era who had nothing to do with the challenges this inmate had experienced in society.

Living in a state institution as a teen myself, I could see how out of touch my examples were. I began studying the lives of a few African American men who had made incredible contributions to society in spite of daunting challenges. For instance, Ray Charles battled not only childhood poverty and blindness, but also decades of a heroin addiction. Still, the talented musician rose to fame, and finally beat heroin.

Then there was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., www.history.net reports that the Black leader suffered, “Personal abuse, arrest, and the bombing of his home…” Yet he never resorted to violence always offering a pathway of non-violent resistance with love as his primary weapon. I began incorporating testimonies of these courageous overcomers, and found that the wise inmate’s advice resulted in a greater response. Sometimes, I included a few lines from Dr. King Jr.’s prophetic “Drum Major” message of what he wanted at his funeral. He asked that his Nobel Peace Prize, his hundreds of awards, and schooling not be mentioned.

Instead, “I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others…. did try to feed the hungry…to clothe those who were naked…to visit those who were in prison…[and] …that I tried to love and serve humanity….”
Tragically, only two months later, a recording of these very words was played at his funeral. Another tragedy is that as time passes, we are forgetting this slain leader’s poignant example. He never stopped trying, and neither should we.

Christina Ryan Claypool is a freelance journalist and inspirational speaker. Contact her through her website at www.christinaryanclaypool.com.

Black History: The power of love

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It’s Black History month. Once again, our nation celebrates the amazing contributions of African-American men and women who overcame daunting odds to better our society. Over a hundred and fifty years have passed, since Abraham Lincoln drafted the Emancipation Proclamation. According to www.history.com, “…[Lincoln] issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states ‘shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.’” The historical website also records, “While the Emancipation Proclamation did not free a single slave, it was an important turning point in the war, transforming the fight to preserve the nation into a battle for human freedom.” Ultimately, slavery was abolished, but our nation has continued to fight the enemy of racism.

When I was a little girl, I wasn’t aware of discrimination. All I knew was that when Clemmie hugged me or my brothers and sisters, or took care of my very ill mother, she loved us. Her skin was dark brown, and we were white and didn’t have a lot of money, but somehow God made us family in the worst of times. She fed us, bandaged scraped knees, and painstakingly nursed my mother back to health. Clemmie was a compassionate worker of miracles, that’s why at six-years-old I didn’t know racism existed.

But since it was the 1960’s, while growing up I became conscious of the battle for civil rights listening to nightly news casts. There were riots, valiant lunch-counter sit-ins, courageous Rosa Parks taking a seat on the bus, heroic Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being assassinated, and there were more riots. For the next couple decades, there were also folks who tried to overcome the racial tension that never really healed.

Fast forward to the 1990s, to a humid summer evening when I was driving by myself. I heard beautiful music coming from a small church that I passed. I felt so alone and like such a failure that particular night. I was a young single mom doing my best, but it just wasn’t good enough in lots of ways. I had been refinishing furniture earlier that afternoon, and my white t-shirt and old jeans were soiled with wood stain. I stood next to my car listening to the melodious voices of what sounded like a Heavenly soulful choir, desperately wishing I could go inside the unfamiliar fellowship.

The sign said that the Lima church was AME [African Methodist Episcopal]. Over 25 years ago, AME churches had almost exclusively black congregations. Just then, another car pulled up and a couple of older black women got out and headed towards the brick church. One grandmotherly lady stopped to ask if I was alright. I told her that I was listening to the beautiful music. Maybe she could sense that I was a troubled soul or maybe she was simply kind, but she encouraged me to come inside the church.

“But I’m such a mess,” I protested pointing to my stained shirt and jeans.

“It’s not how you go. It’s that you go,” she countered enthusiastically. So, dutifully I followed her up the steps of that church where in the years to come I would be a welcome visitor on numerous occasions.

There were two ladies who attended the church who would also become close friends, Maggie Breaston, and her sister, the late Georgia Newsome. Growing up in the south and moving to the Midwest in the mid-1950s to escape racism, these courageous women told me story after story about the subtle racism they encountered once they arrived in the north. Yet, they refused to become bitter. Miss Georgia even became known as an expert on Black History in Lima.

In the end, what I know about Black History is that people who could have hated me for the color of my white skin, showed me love when I needed it most. Unconditional love like Clemmie displayed by helping my family, love like the woman who invited me to her church, or love like Georgia Newsome and Maggie Breaston always shared, despite experiencing the sting of discrimination firsthand.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. understood that love was the only force capable of destroying prejudice. To quote Dr. King Jr., “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.”

Christina Ryan Claypool is a freelance journalist and inspirational speaker. Contact her through her website at www.christinaryanclaypool.com.

The Etiquette of Personal Technology 101

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Technology warning small fileIf you are young person today, there are probably a lot of things that annoy you. If you are not young, then you have to understand that over the last decade the word, “annoy” has taken on a whole new meaning. At first, I was intrigued by the way a teenager angry at their parents, teacher, or a peer could say, “They are so annoying,” and make it sound like a degrading profanity. If you listen closely, you will find that some teens find most of life’s frustrating circumstances “annoying” like having to do homework, clean their room, or even a bad hair day.

That’s why I thought the word, “annoy” so aptly describes how I felt some years ago when attending a meeting with hundreds of college students, and one very renowned speaker. This man had traveled countless miles to address the group hoping to impart some of the wisdom that he had learned on his life’s journey. Unfortunately, many undergraduates in attendance that day probably didn’t hear a word he said. After all, they were really busy. Earbuds were everywhere, with most students either engaged with an electronic device, or else frantically texting on their cell phones.

It was like a technology zoo in the auditorium that morning and all the battery powered caged animals were running amuck. The seventy-something speaker initially looked confused as he tried without success to gain the attention of his audience. Then I sensed his frustration and irritation realizing that he was being, “dissed.”

“Dissed,” might have just caused your internal spell check to turn code red, but it’s now accepted in mainstream usage. According to the Urban Dictionary “being dissed is the act of being disconnected, by voice or by modem from another party.” Another definition from the same source, says that “dissing someone is showing disrespect to them.”

Bottom-line, an alarming percentage of the learners gathered had opted to listen to another source of technological input, cutting off the speaker’s ability to be heard. The presenter finally seemed “annoyed” himself, and finished his talk rather abruptly and somewhat disheartened. I wondered what happened to the age-old principle to “listen when someone is speaking.” Or what about the etiquette rule of turning off technology when a meeting begins?

6353664 - CopyI was more than annoyed; I was truly heartbroken, concerned that these bright students were a precursor of the future. This topic is personal for me, because I’ve had to battle ongoing distractions as a public speaker for the past two decades. I’ve talked through screaming babies, women filing their nails, teenagers looking bored to death, and ringing cell phones. It’s difficult to explain away distracting phones, yet I have always comforted myself with the knowledge that the mom of the screaming baby or the woman manicuring her nails might need to hear what I’m saying. Same way, with a seemingly uninterested teen, since many times, hurting adolescents are listening intently but have to act bored for fear of being labeled uncool.

My school administrator husband whom I affectionately refer to as “Mr. Rules,” was visibly disappointed when I reported the technology frenzy of that morning’s event. He mumbled the word, “confiscate,” which I have since learned is what most K-12 public school policy dictates when students are using cell phones or technology inappropriately. Sadly, this policy was obviously not in place in the post-secondary gathering which I attended. Since the most distressing part is that the elderly speaker was African American, and his audience was comprised of about 95 percent Caucasian college kids. This eloquent orator had a culturally diverse message that those young people needed to hear. He might think he was disrespected due to his age or race.

But the truth is that many students were just too obsessed with their electronic devices to pay much attention.

Famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.”

The problem is that the development of technological devices has rapidly exceeded the rules for their use. Maybe universities could create a course entitled, “The Etiquette of Personal Technology 101,” which we all could benefit from.

Christina Ryan Claypool is an award-winning freelance journalist and inspirational speaker. Contact her through her Website at www.christinaaryanclaypool.com

Black History: The Sad Story of Subtle Segregation

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As February ends, it would be remiss not to mention that it’s Black History month. I’d like to tell you that Black History is an inspirational narrative about societal acceptance and positive change, but often it’s not. Sadly, it’s more of a one step forward and two steps back kind of progression. Although sometimes it’s been the other way around. “The ASALH [Association for the Study of African American Life and History has dedicated] … the 2013 Annual Black History Theme to celebrating the anniversary of two important African American turning points – the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and the 1963 March on Washington,” reported the Davenport University Library Services.

In explanation, on August 28, 1963, approximately a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington D. C. There are historical photos of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. waving to the huge crowd. That summer day, the Lincoln Memorial audience heard the Civil Rights leader share his famous, “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King spoke passionately about his vision of an America where one day in the future, his children would “… not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I thought about the progression of racial equality, while celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day this past January at the Mount Zion Holy Union Church of God in Sidney, an event organized by Rev. Phil Chilcote. Keynote speaker, 73-year-old Dr. Ervin Smith of Columbus, an emeritus professor of Christian Ethics at Methesco, a Methodist Seminary, explained what segregation in Georgia looked like in his youth. Dr. Smith shared that he couldn’t go into the main library, restaurants, get the same medical treatment, or drink out of the same drinking fountains as whites, solely because of being black. Eventually, the scholar authored his own books including: “The Ethics of Martin Luther King Jr.,” and “Black Theology: Toward an Inclusive Church,” among others. Segregation affected Smith’s choice of a college as well. “I couldn’t go to the University of Georgia…couldn’t go to Georgia Tech. Why? Because of the color of my skin,” he said. When the educator who obtained his Ph.D. from Northwestern University in Illinois moved to Delaware, Ohio, in 1971, he thought he had escaped segregation. Yet he met a different kind of segregation in the north.

Bishop Ernest Wilson, pastor at Mount Zion, says that he could identify with Dr. Smith’s story. After all, he was “reared in Alabama.” He said, “I’ve been here [in Sidney] 52 years, but I remember where I came from.” For Bishop Wilson many of those memories are painful. He said, “I would talk to my mom…I can’t go around here saying, ‘Yes, Sir’ and they calling me a boy.” The 72 year old minister told of other serious injustices when he was teenager. Like seeing a friend stabbed for no reason, who “walked to the doctor’s offices with his intestines in his hands, only because he was black.” Bishop Wilson defines, “Equality, [as] the state or quality of being equal…we just wanted to be treated fairly,” he said. “One of the great deceptions I had 52 years ago when I came to Shelby County… [I] was really surprised some things going on here [concerning racism]. Thought I was leaving those things behind,” said the pastor. During the sixties, he found out that Blacks could only live in certain neighborhoods, and that there were still local businesses where he couldn’t get service.

I listened as both older African American men portrayed growing up in the segregated south. Escaping to the Midwest, believing they would be accepted for who they were. Although often they were met with a subtle segregation, that was a difficult enemy to combat. In past interviews with Lima’s Black History expert, the now deceased Miss Georgia Newsome, she and her sister, Mrs. Maggie Breaston, also spoke of the subtle segregation they experienced many decades ago moving here from the south. After all, it happened most everywhere.

Maybe some folks would say, it’s over and we should just forget it. Yet to paraphrase the wise words of late Holocaust survivor, Elisabeth Sondheimer of Lima, Ohio, “If we bury the past, we are likely to repeat it.” Instead, “We’ve got to do better,” urged Bishop Wilson. “Fifty years after Dr. King made the speech I’m finding out…We’ve got to do better.”  But how can we?  Dr. Ervin Smith believes there is a remedy to the racism that seeks to destroy communities. The retired educator said, [We have] “Got to work with our children, work with each other…until we all see each other as children of God.”

Christina Ryan Claypool is a freelance journalist and inspirational speaker. Contact her through her website at www.christinaryanclaypool.com. This column originally appeared in the Sidney Daily News on Feb. 22, 2013.