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Saints and Martyrs ˜ 287
his anger toward racism and bigotry. We listened to his social analysis of the
abuse of the Black man in American society. He laid it out plain for us. We hope
that his future will be a steady, sober, strong, and meaningful life, full of good
work, health, food, friends, and a home. We pray that he will have these good
gifts, because we want much more than survival for LeBron.
The transformation we witnessed in LeBron Walton’s life was a truly amazing
gift of God’s grace made flesh. The hobbling, frozen, raggedy, bearded, silent
man who limped into the Open Door spent a year regaining his health, renewing
his sense of self-worth, recovering his sobriety, rediscovering his voice, and
realizing the beauty of his face, his hands, his feet, his whole race.
But LeBron, standing straight and proud, stepped out of this transforming
space and time, we fear, into nothing. He searched for work and found a job at
a chicken-processing plant. For little more than five dollars per hour, LeBron
Walton stands all day in one place, repeatedly reaching into a headless chicken
to grab its craw, twist, and yank it out. One chicken per second flashes before
his eyes. When one hand tires, he switches to the other. After one day, his arms
and hands swelled from carpal tunnel syndrome. Rest from the repeated motion
is the only cure, but there is no rest at one chicken per second.
A wage of five dollars per hour is not enough for life. You can’t have a place
to live, food, transportation, and health care on such a meager salary. Our friend
Mike Griffin, who directed the major renovation of the old Imperial Hotel, says
that affordable, safe, decent housing alone requires a wage of nine dollars per
hour.
Before LeBron Walton left the Open Door Community, he sat down one
evening to tell about his life. We share his story because it is the cry of the oppressed
that God hears. May it move us to work for justice, to demand a lifesustaining
minimum wage, to call for the abolition of all abusive, sweat-shop
labor practices, to create good and meaningful work for all people, to make
home together, and to build the Beloved Community.
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I was born in 1951 and grew up in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with my father
and stepmother. My father was divorced from my mother when I was very
young—I don’t know the exact age, but I had to be around two or three years
old. My mother wasn’t taking care of her children like she should have been. My
father got a divorce and got custody of all seven of us. We were separated—my
sisters and brothers and I. Some of us were sent to Alabama to stay with my father’s
mother and aunt. And some of us stayed in Chattanooga. We stayed with
some aunts on my mother’s side.