In remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, today’s Houston Chronicle has an interesting article on Houston’s MLK Blvd – its past and its present. MLK Blvd in Houston runs from the southeastern part of the city near Hobby Airport , north to the University of Houston. It is a long, mostly residential street with small businesses lining both sides. I have driven on it near the airport and close to the university but not on the stretch between the two.
Snaking north to south from the University of Houston to its dead end at Almeda-Genoa Road, the street named for Martin Luther King Jr., transects some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. A third of the residents live below the poverty level, and the harshness of their lives is chronicled by the rap lyrics of South Park Mexican, Scarface and Z-Ro.
Look and you’ll see a street lined with a shabby procession of barber shops and grocery stores. Look again, and you’ll see mom-and-pop businesses, flourishing churches and even headquarters for national companies. The boulevard is a street of dreams; a street of dreams broken.
Such paradoxes seem particularly sharp today, the national holiday honoring King, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his civil rights work in the turbulent 1960s.
For some who live and work on the boulevard, the possibility that Barack Obama might become the nation’s first black president makes King’s dream of brotherhood seem brighter than ever. For others, Obama’s campaign simply reminds of other black politicians, who, they believe, proved disappointments.
"We are facing things in our lives that we’ve never faced before," said boulevard real estate agent Dorothy Pruitt-Harris. "Gas prices, oil prices, credit problems. A lot of people don’t know where to go."
Speaking of King’s assassination 40 years ago this April, Pruitt-Harris’ colleague, insurance broker Trazawell Franklin Jr., added, "That was 40 years ago … and we’re still dreaming. Things are still the same. We’re still the last hired and the first fired. We’re still waiting for the right leadership, the right positions and the right time."….
……"I feel things are really messed up," Pruitt-Harris said, "but if (Obama) does get elected, maybe he can bring things back together."
Franklin seemed unconvinced, arguing that even during the tenure of Mayor Lee Brown and Police Chief Clarence Bradford, both African-Americans, "heads still were beat, we still had profiling."
A short distance away, at the national headquarters of the Harlon’s barbecue chain, company president Candace Brooks Clement offered a different view. Her company, founded by her father in 1977, now operates restaurants in Houston, Austin, Nacogdoches and Las Vegas and employs 105 workers.
"The dream is still going for us," she said. "We have aspiration. We still want to go higher in the profession."
And here is Charles Krauthammer whose interpretation of Hillary Clinton’s reference to Martin Luther King Jr. and Lyndon B. Johnson echoes my own.
Accidental Blogger 
8 responses to “Boulevard of Broken and Burgeoning Dreams”
viewing from a distance, from the outside, from far away across the seven seas, Martin Luther King Jr’s dream no longer appears to be a dream. Hollywood movies show blacks in high position in the US. in a country where oprah winfrey, denzel washingtom and obama are what they are, well. i think, there is enough reason for Martin Luther King to rest in peace.
I admit i know nothing of th ground reality. but this is an impression shared by a lot of people in my part of the world
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I usually disagree with Krauthammer, but for once, he writes perceptively of what could be the possible motivations and ambitions of Hillary vs. Obama. What is the press coming to, all of a sudden? Is it something new in the water or the air- Christopher Hitchens wielding a poison-pen against a Clinton resurgence, Krauthammer delicately dissecting HRC motives, with graceful props to African-American sensitivities… Are they trying to push deeper divisions so that the specter of a Clinton-Obama ticket go away- it would probably be a more powerful combination than any other, given the present primary results.
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I too am not a fan of Krauthammer. But occasionally he does speak the unpalatable truth. Nothing that Krauthammer, Hitchens or others are saying will do more harm to Democratic Party unity than Hill and Bill’s naked ambition is not inflicting already.
It is one thing to praise one’s own spouse (or family member) during a campaign. It is quite another to viciously slam her opponent. More than unseemly of an ex-president who is the nation’s mouthpiece in various international human rights endeavors. But what is a little mud slinging when you have another shot at the presidency?
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KPJ:
You are right. Things are much better now but there is more room and need for improvement. Obama’s run as a viable presidential candidate and his win in the mostly white state of Iowa is a powerful example of that progress.
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Anyone : What is the source for the phrase “boulevard of broken dreams”? I have seen it used in other western languages from the 90s and possibly before.
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Narayan:
It is a song. (Here is the video)
But that was probably not what brought the phrase to my mind when I wrote this post. I have a kitschy art print of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks in which the four barroom figures have been altered to depict James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Marily Monroe and Elvis Presley. It hangs on the wall just above my computer and its title is “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”
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Ruchira : I too found the wiki-article you cite. However, I remembered a song named “Por el bulevar de los sueños rotos” by Joaquin Sabina, dated 1994 — a decade before the Green Day song. The Sabina song is mentioned in the wiki-article (I found it on a hunch) on Chavela Vargas, whose singing is heard on more than one Almodovar movie, and who does a stint in the movie about Frida Kahlo. See the last line under “Appearances on Film” in the following link :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavela_Vargas
Chavela, Queen of the Ranchera, is quite a character, and has an unforgettable voice. Here is a clip of her appearance in “Frida” :
A fanciful video of the Sabina song is at :
I believe that “boulevard … ” has an even earlier provenance than 1994. I’ll keep looking.
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Try this. The earliest reference is to a 1934 song.
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