I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m home.
“Goin’ Back to Indiana,” The Jackson 5
In the meandering course of my life, while my body has sought to live in a house, my spirit has sought to dwell in a home. Growing up in a housing project in the steel town of Lackawanna NY in the 1960’s and 70’s, the idea of me ever owning a house someday, purchasing a piece of the American Dream, seemed as impossible as owning the Royal Palace of Oz. There were some brick houses in our neighborhood, but most houses were small with clapboard siding. Most brick houses were on the other side of the tracks, far from the Bethlehem Steel plant looming over my neighborhood like a great beast breathing out fire and smoke.
Black people did not live on the other side of tracks. I would travel through that part of town when my mother took us shopping. Staring out of the bus window, I watched houses go by. This was where most of the white people lived. This was Oz. Over the rainbow. It seemed no matter how fiercely the Hawk swooped across Lake Erie, it would never land us here. We had our place.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 6 million Black people left the South between 1910 and 1970. (In 1910, according to the Brookings Institution, 90% of Blacks lived in the South.) There was a place for them in the South. Having come to work in the mills and factories of Flint, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Gary, Buffalo, Lackawanna, these migrants should have landed in communities where there was no assigned place. But they learned that there were closed doors in employment, housing, and education. Even with those closed doors, they felt there was the opportunity to pursue the American Dream, and those doors would open for their children.
My parents were part of the Migration, having left Birmingham, Alabama, in the early 1950’s, settling in Lackawanna. Through grainy black-and-white images shining through the glass tube of our TV, they saw sorrow and hope. The church of mama’s youth, the 16th Street Baptist Church, bombed. Bull Connor ordering dogs and fire hoses turned on Black children. Gov. George Wallace vowing, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” They saw President Kennedy propose civil rights legislation but be assassinated before it was signed. They saw the March on Washington, but also heard news of Martin Luther King’s assassination before he could make it to the mountaintop.
We children looked for escapism through the screen. We sought out “Colored” musical acts—the Temptations, Smokey and the Miracles, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, James Brown. Many of them appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” When our family got a color TV in 1969, a whole new world opened up.
That year for the first time, my sisters and I saw our favorite movie in color—”The Wizard of Oz.” The sepia world of Kansas changed to color as Dorothy opened the door to the land of Oz, and we were probably as mesmerized as the first audience that saw the theatrical release in 1939. The ruby red shoes, the yellow brick road, the green face of the Wicked Witch of the West, the red and yellow, poppies. The shimmering skyline of the Emerald City.
Right before Christmas that year, “The Ed Sullivan Show” brought on an act we had never seen before. The Jackson 5. I was 10. One of the songs they sang was “I Want You Back.” And I lost my mind. Marlon wore a black fringed vet, Michael a purple one. Tito donned a black apple-jack hat on top of his afro, and Marlon a purple one. Michael wore a purple fedora. They sang live, Tito on the guitar, Jermaine on the bass. They were cute. Their dance steps tight, right. Their harmonies resonated in the shadows of our living room. They were stars, all of them, revealed in full color and light. My sisters and I sat in a world of sepia and watched the Jackson 5 open a door into a world of color. Over the rainbow. Into Oz.
We became instant fans following their journey. According to the website, Classic Motown, “The Jackson 5 become the first act in popular music history to reach No. 1 in Billboard with their first four charted singles.” “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There.” “ABC” knocked the Beatles’ “Let It Be” out of the number one spot. As beloved as the Beatles were, we didn’t relate to them the way we did to the Jackson 5. The Jackson 5 were Black. They were children. They were also from a steel town, Gary, Indiana. They, like us, were part of a family with nine children. The older brothers went to Roosevelt High School. We went to Roosevelt Elementary. Their parents, like ours, were from the South, Joe from Arkansas, Katherine from Alabama.
My sisters and I had their “Third Album,” and the “Jackson 5 Christmas Album,” both released in 1970. Thanksgiving weekend of that year, the biggest Jackson 5 event of them all, from our perspective was happening. They were playing a concert at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Two of my older sisters were going. I was excited and looking forward to a review of the concert when they came home. I usually went to sleep early, but I was determined to stay awake. A little over an hour after they left, they were back home. The concert had been canceled.
The oldest of my sisters said, “Somebody threatened to kill Michael Jackson! It was all crazy! There was so much pushing and shoving and screaming, I got swept clean past the turnstile without anyone taking my ticket!”
I managed to stay up for 11 o’clock news, and the canceled concert was the lead story. Gang members had called in multiple death threats against Michael. Concertgoers had to be turned away, and a near riot ensued. Throngs of girls were crying. As much as I was disappointed, I was angry. Why couldn’t we have something good?
The next year the Jackson family moved to California. I followed the tale of their lives in “Ebony”, “Jet,” and “Right On!” I watched their cartoon and their TV special, “Goin’ Back to Indiana.” Jermaine left the group when they left Motown in 1976. The family got its own show, “The Jacksons,” even though Jermaine was not part of it. Michael eased on down the road as the Scarecrow in “The Wiz” and lived life “Off the Wall” with his solo album the next year. As far as I could see, The Jacksons were living the American Dream.
My siblings and I lived out our dreams and those of our parents as many destination cities of the Great Migration turned into the Rust Belt. Five of us earned college degrees. Two brothers became career military men, another became a pipefitter. As we moved out of our assigned place, something strange happened. Some of my siblings began moving to the South.
In 1970, when the population of Black people living in the South had plummeted to 53 percent, Brookings noted a new trend — Northern Black people moving South as part of a “New Great Migration.” I became part of the New Migration when I moved from Boston to Virginia Beach in 1995 and bought a home. I was content living there, writing, gardening, but when Mama was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2000, I moved to Pittsburgh.
Mama was widowed and living there, and though she had not been herself for at least a year — forgetful, quiet — she wanted to stay at home in her two-bedroom ground floor apartment which she shared with my brother, Michael. My oldest sister also lived in Pittsburgh, so to help honor Mama’s wishes, I agreed to move. I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could before she drifted into another world only her faraway gaze could see.
In January of 2001, I went to see a house on the Northside of Pittsburgh. Having tired of urban living, I was not sure I wanted to see it. I had a cousin who lived in the neighborhood who had agreed to meet me there. As I sat in my car waiting for her and the realtor, I gazed up at the house. It was a stone Victorian built in the late 1800’s. A flight of two-tiered stairs led to a large porch. There were curved glass windows on the first and second floor, stained glass windows and a third-story turret, tiled in slate and topped with a multicolored finial. This whimsical house looked like a small castle, and I was curious to see inside.
The realtor arrived first. It was cold inside the house, but beyond that chill, I felt a shiver as I walked into the entry hall. On the landing of the stately main staircase was a tall stained-glass window. Bright yellow with accents of crimson and emerald, a shaft of light lit it brightly, touching my spirit. As I toured the rest of the house, I felt my spirit totally give way to its charm.
There were enormous pocket doors on the first floor, tin ceilings, a wooden ice box built into the main hallway, a butler’s pantry, wood floors with inlays, and a back servants’ staircase. On the second floor, all the bedrooms had fireplaces, and there was a ballroom with curved windows. In addition, there was an apartment on the third floor.
By the time my cousin arrived, I knew I was going to buy this house. It felt like home. Stepping inside, she said, “I didn’t realize this was the house you were looking at. Part of the Jacksons movie was shot here. I’ve always wanted to see inside this house.”
Astonished, I asked, really? “The Jacksons: An American Dream” was filmed here?”
“Yes, I would walk over here and watch the filming.”
Released as a miniseries in 1992, “The Jacksons: An American Dream,” not only showcased the brilliance of the Jackson 5, but it also exposed the painful truths of what went into the making of that dream. Grueling practices, a harsh father, crazed fans who hounded them. A hard scene for me to watch involved a young physically and emotionally exhausted Michael crying and screaming and being dragged onto a plane by his father to go to the next concert date. The movie left me with a deeper understanding about dreams, family, home.
My home needed renovations. When the green wallpaper was stripped from the ballroom, underneath there was a section of the wall signed by the crew of the miniseries. I touched it tenderly, and when the walls were painted, I preserved those signatures.
My mother would live another five years, not drifting too far from us. She had time to love on my daughter, who was born in 2002, to spend time with her. Evenings when I would return from her home after cooking dinner or spending the weekend with my daughter, I was grateful to walk back into my home.
I have since moved on from that home, but I was living there when Michael Jackson died in June of 2009. His sudden death shook the world. I called one of my sisters, and we talked for hours. While the world came to terms with his death, less than a week later, quietly in my family’s world, one of our sisters died suddenly. Her memorial service and Michael’s were on the same day, July 7. My siblings and I gathered and mourned her, attending her service in Maryland early in the day. Gathered later at her son’s house, we watched Michael’s, service — part funeral, concert, celebration, and worldwide cultural event. But as Michael’s brothers wheeled in his golden coffin, I could not help but feel I was watching brothers honoring their brother.
After I returned home to Pittsburgh, I caught an airing of “The Jacksons: An American Dream.” Watching it was surreal. Angela Bassett as mom Katie and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs as dad Joe had sparked their love here. The ballroom had been used as Katie’s family’s room in the boardinghouse. Joe had stood on the servants’ staircase after he gave Katie her Christmas present. Katie and Joe ascended the porch steps and kissed after he shared his dream of returning to California and taking her with him.
RELATED: Tito Jackson, an icon of the Jackson 5, dead at 70
Joe and Katie had been searching for what generations of Americans seek. That dream. I thought of them, the movie, and my Pittsburgh home when Tito Jackson recently died.
I felt his death as sharply as I felt Michael’s, the suddenness of it, the weight of losing something much larger. I have not seen where a public memorial has been planned for Tito. There may be, but even if there is not, I can understand the family wanting to honor their brother quietly, privately as they celebrate him home.
In recent years, I have seen young people on social media react to videos of the Jackson 5. Some focus on Michael, seeing him as the sole star, but others acknowledge that all the brothers were an integral part of their success. I don’t know if any of us will ever know the full price the brothers paid for their success. For their American Dream. In retrospect, what I do know is that for me, and perhaps millions of Black girls and boys, the Jackson 5 opened a door into a world beyond our dreams. No need for wizards, or witches to direct us home, North, South, East, or West. Through them, we saw that we could determine our own place. Let the spirit guide us. We had the brain, the courage, the heart for the spirit to guide us home.