Dreamer by Charles Johnson

The book scheduled for our August 17^th discussion is Dreamer by Charles Johnson. It takes place in Chicago during the summer of 1966 and Dr. Martin Luther King is staying in a disgusting tenement apartment to underlie the argument for affordable decent housing. Riots are going on all around and Dr. King is questioning as to whether his position of non-violence will work in a northern city. The parts of the book that are in italics are the inner thoughts of Dr. King, the pages in plain type is the story.

The narrator is Matthew Bishop, a college dropout who joined the Movement as a record-keeper/note-taker, who says about himself: “I knew I left no lasting impression people who met me once (and often two and three times). Most never remembered my name, I had no outstanding features, no “best side,” as they say, to hold in profile…a shy, bookish man who went to great lengths not to call unnecessary attention to himself…I was nobody.”

Our discussion wasn’t well attended at all. Judy was excited about the location of the setting because she had lived in Evanston, IL and knew all the places described.

 Connie C. began by pointing out how the end of the book tied everything together concerning the conspiracy by the government to murder Dr. Martin Luther King. She said there’s a fine line between conspiracy theories and critical thinking.

I wanted to veer the conversation back to the beginning of the book, where Dr. King first lays eyes on Chaym Smith. I like the way the scene is set:

Matthew Bishop tells Dr. King, “Reverend, I think you need to take a look at this.

…From my pocket I extracted a dog-eared card…The card I handed over…was an expired Illinois state driver’s license issued to one Chaym Smith, birth date 01/15/29, height 5’7”, weight 180, eyes brown. The minister gazed- and gazed- at the worn license, picking at his lip, and finally looked back at me, poking the card with his finger.

“This could be me!”

“That’s what we thought too,” I said.

“Who is this man?”

“We don’t know.”

“But what does he want with me?”

“Sir,” I said, “maybe he should tell you himself.”

…He tore his eyes away, then looked back. Smith was still there…His work shirt was torn in at least two places, and yellowed by his life in it; his trousers were splotchy with undecipherable stains and threadbare at the knees-he was the kind of Negro the Movement had for years kept away from the world’s cameras: sullen, ill-kept, the very embodiment of the blues.”

Chaym Smith was as well-read as Dr. King. He was steeped in Eastern Religion and had spent one year as a monk in Japan. He’d also taken classes at the Moody Bible Institute and had started his life wanting to be a minister. Smith had one bad break after another: didn’t know his father, had his leg blown up (and his best friend killed in that incident) spent time in a mental institution, and more, never accomplishing his goals.

 Dr. King, on the other hand, was reared in a middle class family, given every advantage in Church and school, had parents who nurtured him. The question in the book is why some people get the upper hand in life and some don’t. One of the recurring things is the story of Cain and Abel, how Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s wasn’t. Chaym (a variation of the name Cain) says that he’s a type of Cain, where Dr. King is a type of Abel. Dr. King, in his private musings, even sees the unfairness of it.

More importantly, Chaym Smith sees Matthew Bishop as a Cain as well and exhorts him to accept this as a fact of his life and become a cynic. Matthew Bishop didn’t know his father either. His mother had just recently died. He seems to be adrift with no identity, pliable to either the goodness of King or to the cynicism of Smith.