Growing Up King (20 page)

I
began to try to learn if my problem was me, or something inside me.

I didn’t know what was going on with me internally, from a medical/chemical and neurological standpoint. I was disabled and
tortured by something, all through those years since I’d been born to Mother as her “battlefield commission,” delivered in
post-traumatic stress syndrome. It hadn’t been just the bombing when Yoki was less than two months old, it was bomb after
bomb: those churches and residences in Montgomery after the success of the bus boycott; Uncle A.D.’s house in Birmingham in
1963, when he was ministering there. The bombers didn’t rest on their laurels; they bombed Sixteenth Street Baptist Church
and killed four little girls in Birmingham, and they kept bombing or burning. How many small rural southern black churches
were burned in the ’90s? Thirty? At times, in the ’50s and ’60s, it seemed they wanted to bomb us back to the Stone Age.

Izola Ware Curry had stabbed my father in the chest at a book signing in 1958; there’d been a trumped-up income tax evasion
trial in Montgomery; stress on stress until my parents moved to Atlanta in 1960; conflict between my father and grandfather
over the direction Dad should take, whether or not we should live in Vine City; presidential politics of 1960; turmoil before
Dad’s being jailed; how he was jailed, sent to Reidsville State Prison.

Mother endured all this. After delivering me in January of ’61—because I was premature and on the advice of the doctor, who
was concerned I would not get enough nourishment—she took a shot to stop the flow of milk, so I wasn’t breast-fed. Doctors
didn’t know to recommend breast-feeding over formula then, although Mother could handle it. She had breast-fed Yolanda until
the house in Montgomery was bombed, then they moved so much and there was so much stress that she went to the bottle. Martin
was breast-fed for months then supplemented with formula. I was a straight formula baby, all formula all the way. So was Bernice.
No mother’s milk at all. Some things you can’t overcome. Not without help. We need what Mother Nature intended to give us.
Later, I’d suffered undiagnosed problems, physical ailments, maladies—you might call them shortcomings. I had food allergies,
environmental allergies, a cornucopia of ills.

I knew I had issues in terms of health and wellness as it related to my moods changing. I just subconsciously chose not to
do anything about it. I’d known since Mother took me to the sleep disorder clinic in Memphis when I was twelve. We went to
Memphis Baptist Memorial Hospital, where they wired me up. I had wires coming out of my head, out of my neck, my chest, the
EKG, the brain-wave monitors, all that. Almost from the minute I fell asleep, I entered the REM stage, right away I was dreaming
within fifteen minutes—not normal for most. Most people enter the REM stage much later. I experienced rapid eye movement almost
immediately. They couldn’t figure out what it meant. It’s one thing to fall asleep and go into the REM stage immediately.
That might be an exception; but I’d go to bed at night when I was six, seven, eight, nine years old, wake for breakfast, eat,
and a half hour later, I’d be back to sleep. Even though I’d just slept eight hours, I could fall asleep again after breakfast
and enter the REM stage.

What developed was this pattern of dreaming all the time. I’ve told you my dreams were fun and engulfing and engaging—and
often about my father. It’s almost like I didn’t want to wake up because when I was in the non-dream state, things weren’t
as pleasurable or secure. I would get upset when I was rudely awakened or disturbed, because I would feel like I was being
pulled away from my dream.

Then as I got older I had problems deciphering, concentrating, focusing, sitting for any period of time. Not until I was twenty-eight
were my troubles diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; people like me can read a thing over and over and
still find it hard to comprehend. Even when I’d kept rereading, it wouldn’t sink in because I couldn’t focus. I’m not sure
when the doctors became able to diagnose it. I know they couldn’t in the 1970s, when I was twelve and thirteen and having
the sleep problems, the concentration deficit.

In my younger years I had whined a lot; the whining seemed to be a need for attention. I’d ask repetitive questions, the same
question over and over again: “What did you say? What did you say?” We were visiting cousins in Louisville and they broke
me of this habit by putting me in a blanket and running me up and down the hallway until I stopped. “Aunt Naomi,” I’d repeat
the name, “What did you say, Aunt Naomi, what did you say?”

These experiences, and that of my cousins calling me “Count,” as in day-sleeping vampire, not making it through Morehouse
College; not being able to hold classroom concentration—were all tied up together. Triggering much of it were food and chemical
allergies and environmental factors.

Now, once you accept that this malady exists—and it took a while for me to accept it—and when you research the people who
experience this, you find that their diets, certain foods, certain metals, products, food coloring additives, affect them.
For me it was a host of things, from dental materials in my mouth to my favorite foods. But I didn’t know I had an illness.
Today they call it the “invisible disability.” Somebody’s got one leg shorter than the other, people can see it, you allow
for it. This is something where people say, “Oh, it’s all in your head. You’re making it up.”

Environmental toxins aren’t made up, neither are those unlucky people who react or who are sensitive to them. Environmental
toxins and allergies can do bizarre things to you.

I was walking in the wilderness. Back when I grew up, they really didn’t know how to address those kinds of things. They’d
just say, “Those are bad kids.” There was a welling up of shame in me when I found out. But it’s just a learning disability.
I’ve been told that public relations mogul Jerry Della Femina told
Modern Maturity
magazine in 2000 that as a youth he couldn’t read a map, do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication. He compensated
by being creative, seeing things differently. When I heard that, I knew it was what I’d been feeling for years, was why I
loved working with music so much, but was never able to say—I guess because I didn’t know it was all right to say it. It was
hard for me to focus and concentrate, so I had ups and downs. I tended to be attracted to things that didn’t require a lot
of attention, but that wasn’t a firm rule, because when I was working in public safety, it required focus, and for whatever
reason, I was able to maintain it. So I went through periods where sometimes I was able to manage it better than others, but
the real turning point was when I went vegetarian. For good.

The change finally came, or started, when we were sitting in the reviewing stand of the King Day Parade in Atlanta, in January
of 1988. I had to leave and go to the hospital because of an acute headache pounding away, throbbing, there on Peachtree Street.

I left there with what my maternal grandmother would call “the blind staggers,” a headache so debilitating you can hardly
open your eyes. The emergency room physician told me the only thing they could do for me was give me painkillers and a decongestant.
He said if it didn’t work they’d have to drill a hole in my sinuses to drain them. That did not sound like fun. I said, “I
have a better idea.” I remembered something I’d heard from Dick Gregory, who wasn’t one of my old “uncles” from childhood
but rather a figure we’d met and befriended. He’d said something about diet, sinus, dairy products, things that cause mucus
and buildup and sinus congestion. I said I was going down to Dick’s place in Florida, Fort Walton Beach. I was in bad shape.
The pain was so bad I’d been given Tylenol 4 and it didn’t help. So in near-desperation I went down to Dick Gregory’s for
two weeks. The first week, I stayed in bed and fasted. Juice and water. Within five days, the sinus condition subsided. I
regained strength, felt different. Once Dick got there, we talked. It was like a retreat. He met with me, talked to me about
diet. From that day forward, I made a commitment, I was only going to eat raw foods, preferably vegetables. I could only sustain
it for about a month at that time, but I felt so good not eating cooked food that I didn’t want to mess it up. I felt better—
euphoric, clearheaded. I wanted to stay on that plane.

I learned to have faith in holistic methods; maybe the efficacy of any system is believing in it. The traditional system was
just going to further medicate me, or drill holes in my head, not deal with the problem, but only the symptoms. All this came
full circle on January 30, 1988, my twenty-seventh birthday. I became a strict vegetarian. And from that day forward, I started
learning and evolving more and more, health-wise. I learned as I met with alternative health practitioners, dealt with spiritual
counseling, and delved into other aspects of holistic alternative health care. And I finally began to learn about me.

I found I have a neurological chemical reaction or chemical illness that affects me from time to time. It was worse when I
was younger, but today my altered way of life makes it manageable. Traditional medicine doesn’t have a clue as to how to address
this “invisible disability”; a lot of the ADD kids you hear about today are called Ritalin kids. Doctors tried to put me on
Ritalin as a child. Mother wouldn’t allow it. Some medication is worse than the symptoms.

I developed a passion for health and nutrition. My unconventional, nontraditional, unorthodox approach raised questions. People
looked at me funny. I’d hear, “Brother from the South talking about he don’t eat no meat? He’s crazy.” Some think “vegetarian”
means you don’t eat red meat. No, it means you don’t eat chicken or fish either. I’m a strict vegetarian. My diet consists
of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and legumes only, and has for the last fifteen years now. Back then I also began to take
blue-green algae supplements. Blue-green algae is a sea vegetable—like any green or vegetable except it grows underwater;
it’s very nutritious, has all of the minerals and vitamins. It’s considered a whole food complex, which means that it has
all of the nutrients that I would get if I ate a meal. Our American diet is devoid of a lot of enzymes and vitamins and nutrients
that help the system fight off disease.

Now, as Americans, we’re so brand conscious that we don’t even read ingredients. I began to read every label of everything
I picked up. I wanted to know what’s in it, because nine times out of ten if there was a word you don’t know, that’s something
you don’t want to put in your body. I got a book on additives and ingredients so I could look up things. I happily, joyfully
turned to eating raw vegetables. Finally, something that could be done to help bring me focus. I felt myself getting fitter,
less congested, more alert. Alive! I’d eat fruit, but too much fruit wasn’t good for me either; sugar made me lightheaded.
I didn’t want to risk this new-found clarity.

When you’re born, the foundation you get from breast milk is key. I didn’t get the foundation laid properly. But the human
body is so magnificent that it will overcome deficiency. It might not end up as strong or as resilient as a body that got
it all early. I had to compensate. I didn’t know this until I did my independent research.

All that time before then, I was physically and mentally foundering. Before, people didn’t know; they just said, “Dexter’s
lethargic. He’s in a daze. He’s off in the ether. What’s he on?”

An American diet is so full of things that our bodies weren’t necessarily meant to handle. Having a weak foundation in its
ecosystem, my body wasn’t fighting things well. My tooth enamel was compromised, partly from the formula I’d been fed. I’d
get cavities, craved sugar, sweets. Once you get that sugar in your system, you’re corrupted. You always want it. We’re an
addicted population. Again, some people can handle some unnatural things better than others. My body craved naturalness. I
didn’t choose vegetarianism to make a statement. It was survival. I was going downhill fast. If I had not become a vegetarian,
I might not have made it this far. It was through alternative medicine that I found answers. The compassionate part of me
wants to enlighten people, but there is a conflict: I’ve seen what happens when you try to change not even a whole society,
but just one person. Though my lifestyle has much to offer, I can’t put it out there as a cause that I will champion. It just
simply has saved my life.

What bothered me the most about Granddaddy’s death is that he still had a sharp mind, but his body gave out. It gave out because
of conditions most think are typical, expected in the aging process. What I learned in my research is it’s not a given, not
absolute: you can affect aging. You can grow old and not be in pain, not suffer. Diet, lifestyle, stress, and emotions must
be managed. If Grand-daddy had tried the diet and lifestyle I adopted, he might’ve lived longer.

My mother is a strict vegetarian. Has been for many years. I brought her into it. It was like pulling teeth getting her to
change, at first. “Look, if you change now, you won’t have those problems later,” I said. “Hmph,” she replied. At first. Her
dietary changes have significantly improved her health. If my grandfather, with all his wisdom, along with a lot of other
great elders in our society, had only cultivated better dietary habits so they could have been around longer, who knows what
they could’ve accomplished? We say “prime” is one’s youth, but it’s later, I think. We put our elders out to pasture because
their bodies break down. I didn’t get a chance to share my dietary revelations with Granddaddy. As I’ve said, we lost him
to heart failure. But I could help Mother. My maternal grandmother in Alabama, Bernice Scott—her mind left, but her body was
still there. Good country living helped her have a better physical ecosystem. Alzheimer’s took her mind. She died at ninety-one.
My grandfather Scott died eventually, at age ninety-nine. So maybe Mother will be around awhile too. We need her.