Life for former Waco Independent School District Superintendent A. Marcus Nelson “ain’t been no crystal stair,” he told the audience at the 33rd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wreath-laying ceremony Friday.
The current city of Marlin education consultant and Friday’s keynote speaker was not just referring to his March 2019 arrest for misdemeanor marijuana possession and subsequent resignation from the district, but his whole life.
“As we come here today to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, I can’t help but say I still have a dream,” Nelson said in his first public address since his resignation. “I’m from East San Antonio. I’m very proud of where I’m from. I was raised with my mother and my little brother in the projects. For those of you who are not familiar with projects, it’s basically a four-story apartment complex, and there’s a poem that was written in 1922 by my fraternity brother Langston Hughes that sums up my life best. It says, ‘Well, son, I’ll you tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places where there ain’t been no carpet on the floor —
Bare.’”
After quoting Hughes’ poem “Mother to Son,” Nelson said he wanted to be clear that the mistakes he has made recently were his own and that he is thankful for the opportunity to still be a part of this community.
“I commit to being an example to children, to future generations of Wacoans, of accepting responsibility for your mistakes and then moving forward,” he said to applause.
Nelson spoke after Waco Mayor Kyle Deaver presented a proclamation honoring trailblazing Waco teacher, police officer and volunteer Alice Pollard, who died in November. Her son, David Pollard, spoke about his mother, too. He said she left a great impact on the city and humankind in general through her volunteerism, which was instilled in him at an early age. She helped the fortunate and the less fortunate and all those in between, spending countless hours lifting up others.
“Her presence is still felt,” he said.
When he got up to speak, Nelson said it was with “mixed emotions” he stood before the audience of city, county and state officials, as well as law enforcement chiefs from around the county. He said he knew Alice Pollard and has “partied” with the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, and he knows there is a standard.
“In many respects, I still feel riddled with guilt and shame for the embarrassment that my personal actions have brought to this beautiful community,” he said. “For those of you who don’t know why this is such a big deal, Google it. Maybe you’ve been under a rock somewhere.”
Still, the former superintendent joked about his arrest. After thanking the emergency services personnel at the Bledsoe-Miller Community Center, where the wreath-laying ceremony was moved because of rain, Nelson said he does not know how he feels about “the whole ‘camping in the left lane’ rule.” The audience roared with laughter, including the peace officers present.
Nelson went on to tell a story about his upbringing in East San Antonio, which he described as not an ideal environment for success. He said many of his friends made different choices and ended up in prison or dead.
“Very few of them had the type of mother and grandmother that I had,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I know you’re probably thinking that in March when I made my mistake that’s the first time I ever made a mistake. Oh, no.”
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One of the first times Nelson made a mistake, he was with his grandmother, who was born a year after King in 1930. She died in 2015. Nelson said she was the matriarch of the family who had Nelson’s mother when she was just 16.
“She had a second-grade education, but she was one of the wisest women,” he said. “I can remember sitting with my grandmother on her porch, and she’d just give these sermons. Y’all know how grandparents are.”
Nelson loved going to his grandmother’s during the summer, mostly for the sweet tea she brewed up to cool them off. He remembered sitting on the porch with her, drinking the tea from mason jars.
“Waco, ya’ll don’t understand. This tea, it’s a diabetic nightmare,” he said to much laughter. “Nothing but a bunch of sugar, lemon and honey.”
One day, he finished his tea, and he could only have one glass a day, per his grandmother’s rules. They still sat on the porch singing spirituals like “I Will Trust in the Lord.”
That day, they were singing that hymn after he’d finished his glass of tea, when his grandmother got up to use the restroom. Nelson quickly reached for her full glass of tea and started guzzling.
“About halfway through, I thought, ‘This don’t taste like my tea,’” he said. “I didn’t want her to know I had drank all her tea, so she comes back and I am inebriated.”
She asked Nelson to sing the hymn for her, but he struggled and slurred the words.
“That was when I was introduced to Crown Royal,” he said as the audience screamed with laughter. “I think about that song all the time because my grandmother used to say to me, ‘You’re going to get into a situation later in your life, and you’re not going to remember where you got this from, but you got it from your grandmother. Son, when you’re at the bottom and you don’t have nowhere else to go, you need to sing this song.’ Boy, I can’t tell you. That song has gotten me through the last nine months.”
He went on to say he will not rest until he rectifies his mistakes and thanked Marlin Mayor Carolyn Lofton and City Manager Cedric Davis for giving him an opportunity to redeem himself. They told him to get up, dust himself off and move forward.
About 80 students and staff from Rapoport Academy Public School’s Meyer High School had marched down Elm Avenue to participate in the annual wreath-laying ceremony, an homage to the marches King took part in or led. Nelson turned to them next, paraphrasing Berton Braley’s poem “The Will to Win.”
“To the young people in the room, be very careful about the decisions that you make because you can do A right, B right, C, D, E, F. You can do all these things right, and you can make one mistake and you can lose that six-figure salary. You can lose that house. You can lose that car, and you can sit and have to start over. Make good choices,” he said. “But I also will tell you this: that whatever your dream is, Dr. Martin Luther King would say we all have to have a dream. I’m telling you if you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it, to work day and night for it, to give up your time, your peace and your sleep for it; if all that you dream and scheme is about it, and life seems useless and worthless without it; if you will simply sweat for it and fret for it and plan for it and lose all your terror of the opposition for it; if you will simply go after that thing that you want with all your capacity, strength and sagacity, faith, hope and confidence, and stern, pure tenacity; if neither gall, poverty, famine nor gout, sickness nor pain of body and brain can keep you from that thing that you want, if dogged and grim you beseech and beset it, with the help of God, you will get it.”
Rapoport Superintendent Alexis Neumann said she and the students walked down Elm Avenue intentionally, even though she could have loaded everyone into a bus.
“We walked down the sidewalks, and we went into the streets, and we dodged mud,” she said. “We did that so that our students would understand that people walked before them and they fought and they went through unimaginable circumstances so that this beautiful picture here of all these kids and all these colors can have an amazing education together.”
Rapoport Academy sophomore Malik Lee read King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which the reverend defends his reasons for being in Birmingham to fellow clergymen and explains the necessity for nonviolent direct action in the city King calls the “most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.”
Midway High School sophomore Terrance Reed then sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” The audience took to its feet with fierce applause after Terrance finished his powerful, heartfelt rendition of the song.
Terrance said he learned to sing from his father and his father’s side of the family, including his grandmother. He often sings at church and other community events. He said he sang that song Friday to help people there know “that a change will come.”
“My goal was to touch the hearts of people like Dr. Nelson and the Pollards,” he said.
— WACOTRIB