Photo credit: Tom Jenz
Frank Nitty at Wilson Park on Milwaukee's South Side during a "Welcome Home" celebration following his August march to Washington, D.C.
Not long ago, I interviewed the controversial protest leader Frank Nitty at the South Side’s Wilson Park. A hundred people had gathered to celebrate Nitty’s return to Milwaukee with 25 followers after their long walk to Washington D.C. to honor the 57th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s famous speech. The walk took close to 30 days and was fraught with drama. Although it was raining in Wilson Park, moods were filled of sunshine. When Nitty made his appearance, he was overwhelmed with hugs and good wishes, but he broke away to speak with me.
You and your folks walked 750 miles across the United States to Washington D.C. What motivated you to take on this adventurous march?
I wanted to honor George Floyd and Dr. King. When they picked the day to be the 57th anniversary of the Dr. King speech to be the same [event] that honored George Floyd, I had a crazy idea—what if I just walked there? I put the idea on Facebook as a joke, but then I just had to do it. Once it gets on Facebook, no one is ever gonna let you live anything down. I didn’t do no news, no media, didn’t call anybody. But then the media picked it up, and then I thought, I gotta do it.
I understand you had some incredible experiences along the way. Is there anything that really stands out about your trip?
It was an amazing spiritual journey. God was really moving out there for everyone. God talked to us all the time. We were walking across the most beautiful country in the world and facing the ugliest people in the world. But everyone that helped us out donated to our cause and brought supplies to make us keep going. A lot of days we were hurt, beat, heartbroken, but people along the way were cheering for us, “Keep going, you can do it.” They found us in the middle of cornfields, they found us on backroads, they made us keeping going. And to have the racism and the police team up against you at times, actually block gas stations so we couldn’t use them, and some cops even working with white supremacists to make the journey difficult, especially for the last 500 miles. Being called a nigger is a difficult thing. Every five minutes someone would be disrespecting us, callin’ us a nigger, a spook, yellin’ “Get out of our town!”
|
|
But you did have some good experiences, right?
Yeah, we had the Valparaiso Chief of Police march with us. Pittsburgh was a great experience with the moms, and helping us, the families. And we were teaming up with activists and having people cheering for us along the way.
What about the physical effort itself? A 750-mile walk on back roads. Was that hard on you?
It was blisters on our feet, walking over 30 miles a day. It does something to your body. It does something to your mind. We went up mountains the last couple days, three-mile stretches, an hour walking straight uphill. The last day we had to walk 82 miles. We started off at 5:30 that morning and ended at 7:30 the next day in Washington.
You told me that in Pittsburgh you did encounter a very dangerous situation.
When we were in Pittsburgh, a guy came up the hill shooting from out of nowhere. Our kids were out, the women were out. Very scary experience. I remember telling everyone to get in the car, being the last one to get in myself. My man C Note told him, ‘Hey, man, we’re peaceful, we’re gonna leave,’ and they shot him. In his face, in his body, it was a birdshot shotgun. The shooter wasn’t charged. They arrested him and let him go. It’s a sign, the racism that exists between the Black cities. It’s like there’s only two Black cities in every state. The rest of the states is white. Smaller white cities, they’re able to be racist cause who is gonna stop them.
You picked up more followers as you marched?
Yeah. And then to have a group of people join me that I really didn’t know, and to have strangers join me along the way. They could be criminals, they could be rapists, they could be child molesters. You have to actually watch these people because you have to keep your core people safe. I felt we did an amazing job of coming together as a family.
Your journey included some enlightening experiences.
We saw things you never see. Like we saw a meteor shower. We walked through a tornado. We were on the only road that didn’t get damaged. We got under this like double rainbow. We saw like 20 falling stars. We were just walking, and stars were falling out of the sky. That was like Life. Maybe the Amish got it right, the simple life. I started thinking about it, the stuff that we saw, like God talks to us all the time, and we never see it, we’re too busy to see it, man, the planet, the earth, the magnificence ... you can’t deny God when you take a journey like that.
Then, there was the homeless guy who gave you one of those mementos on your necklaces.
When we started our march, we ran into a homeless guy in the middle of the park playing a harp, vegetarian like me. We ate vegan beef jerky together, and he played the harp for me. A lot of us were on like a spiritual journey and we changed, something like this changes you forever. Anybody out there … you should take a walk across the country, outside of the city and through the country.
What was it like when you gave your speech in Washington?
I was just happy they were gonna let me talk. I like to talk in the moment from the heart. I’m a very passionate speaker. But it’s like ... the NBA is the best way to explain it. When you’re in high school, you may be the best, but you think maybe I’m really not that good. You go to college and you may ride the bench, and then maybe you score like 25 points, and you’re like, wait a minute, I’m good in college, but I’m not goin’ to the NBA. And then you get to the NBA and you score 35 on LeBron and you think, wait a minute, am I like Giannis Antetokounmpo?
And then you actually gave a speech from the platform where Martin Luther King stood.
I got less than two minutes to speak. I just spoke from my heart for what I felt like were bullet points. This is the revolution, we’re not asking for change, we are demanding it. My grandkids are not gonna be fighting for the same shit my granddad fought for. After my speech, when I came down the elevator, there were all these media, like “Can I get a quick word?” I knew like something changed because MSNBC wanted to talk, the Canadian CNN, BBC London, Essence Magazine, and ESPN and Showtime. They’re gonna let me talk, a guy they think can only talk about walking to Washington D.C. Cause I got plenty more to say. Like I’m gonna show you that Black people are articulate, Black people are smart, we do have a plan, we do have. We have goals, we know how to obtain them, and you can’t out-debate me. I’d love to debate one of those people on CNN, but MSNBC told me no one’s gonna debate you. All this stuff. I’m just a dude from Milwaukee. I’ll never change that part.
To read more News Features, click here.
To read more articles by Tom Jenz, click here.
