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Thursday, November 7, 2013

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Charles-with-shot-up-image-of-Martin-Luther-King--Kensington








“What’s up with that? Are those bullet holes?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Your shots?”

“No, I love the man! I got it from this guy I was working for. He had three portraits of Martin Luther King he was using for target practice, and I asked him if I could have them all, so he gave them to me.”

“It’s pretty weird to see it like that.”

“I just put it up as a conversation piece, to get people talking, you know. There are a lot of prejudiced people in this neighborhood, but I ain’t one of them. The Puerto Ricans, they’re prejudiced too. They don’t even like themselves! I love Martin Luther King, and I voted for Obama, twice! I’m half Italian and half Jewish. My parents met in Africa. I’m not prejudiced at all. One of my tenants was this Thai woman. She lived with me forever.”


[Kensington]



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4 comments:

Betsy said...

Well this is an amazing image & story! Thank you so much for all you do Linh!

Linh Dinh said...

Hi Betsy,

I'd walked by this MLK image before, and never knew what was up, so I was glad to meet Charles. I'm working on a Kensington Postcard. It should be up by tomorrow afternoon.

Linh

Anonymous said...

Does he know the guy walking down the middle of the road - Google Street View opposite 2424 Kensington Ave, PA

Linh Dinh said...

Someone just posted this, then erased it, apparently:

"Does he know the guy walking down the middle of the road - Google Street View opposite 2424 Kensington Ave, PA"

Well, lots of people walk right down the middle of Kensington Ave. The other day, I saw a deaf mute guy gesticulating and making all sorts of noise in the middle of the Ave as he went from car to car...