Cornelius Lockhart was Murdered Last Night

Cornelius Lockhart was murdered last night.
Cornelius Lockhart was murdered last night.

I knew Cornelius as one of the custodians at Meadville Lombard Theological School, where I have spent much of the last three years.

When our sink was plugged, we called Cornelius. When our kitchen smelled like gas, we called Cornelius. When there were animals living in the walls, we called Cornelius.

This morning all I can think about is Cornelius.

I remember all the mornings we stood around shooting the breeze when I was in no hurry to get to class on a sweet spring morning. I remember the sound of his snow shovel scraping the paths, steps and sidewalks after a snowy night.

I remember moving chairs and cleaning up the Chapel with him after this or that function. All of those functions really run together for me now, but I remember the clanking of the metal chairs and synching up the last black garbage bag and saying “See you later. Have a good night.”

Cornelius was a good man, and I am not just saying that because he is dead. He was a thoroughly, twenty-four hour a day, all weather good guy. He was the kind of guy people liked to be around: warm smile, easy laugh and kind eyes.

And last night Cornelius was murdered.

Apparently, he was trying to break up a fight. One of the combatants went outside, got a knife – and stabbed him to death. Murdered him. Just like that.

Just like that?

Cornelius leaves behind a beautiful little girl, Amaya, a step-daughter, and his partner. Nothing can fill the hole that has been torn in their lives. I pray to whoever or whatever answers prayers that they may find some peace, some solace – and some justice – somehow, someday.

I don’t know if the Chicago newspapers will run a blurb about Cornelius’ death or not, but I have a sinking feeling that it will go something like this:

“Cornelius Lockhart, twenty-something-year old African American man, died of knife wounds following a late-night altercation on Chicago’s South Side. Cause of the altercation is unknown and police do not currently have any suspects.”

This is what all such blurbs say: at least when they are about African American men.

I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago for my graduation from seminary. That was the last time I saw Cornelius. My wife and I went to get a cup of coffee from the same place we had been getting our coffee the whole time we lived in Hyde Park. At the counter I noticed that my favorite “coffee guy” – who seemed to work a million hours a week – wasn’t there. Then my wife gasped and pointed at a photo on the counter, right in front of us. It was a Memorial: a photograph, dates of a too-short life, and a small cut out from the Chicago Tribune (which I cannot find now, online – so here is a blurb from the Chicago Maroon):

“Charles Carpenter, 38, was shot and killed Saturday night after an altercation on the 2500 block of East 79th Street. Carpenter is survived by his four children. Police are investigating the incident, but no arrests have been made. Services will be held on Tuesday, May 29, at Carter Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal Church at 7841 South Wabash Avenue. Services will immediately follow a viewing scheduled from 11 a.m. to noon.”

I felt sick. Not just at the loss of such a warm and good human being, someone who had made my life just a little bit sunnier – and not just because of the manner of his death, which no matter how common it becomes on Chicago’s South Side, never loses its horror – but because of how his death was reported. It seemed to reduce this unique and special human being to little more than a statistic, a footnote, one more young black man who died violently.

But that’s not who Charles Carpenter was. That’s not who Cornelius Lockhart was. They were people, children of God. They struggled and loved and lived and made plans for the future. They were good men. I did not know either of them particularly well, but I know this – they were a lot more than footnotes.

And what, exactly, is an “altercation”, anyway? I suspect that when many of us read the word “altercation” in the same sentence with “African American man” – the word conjures up a specific set of stereotypical images; images fed to us in one way or another for hundreds of years – but perhaps never so graphically and pervasively as today. In this case, the blurb does not refer directly to Charles’ race – but it does so indirectly – “the 2500 block of East 79th Street.” A kind of geographical shorthand that someone learns pretty quickly in Chicago.

Can “altercation” possibly encompass the end of someone’s life? Can “survived by his four children” possibly do justice to the breathtakingly beautiful bonds of love that have been twisted and torn?

I don’t think so. But I am quite sure that if I, a middle class white man, died of knife or gunshot wounds, no newspaper would simply say that I had died following an “altercation.”

When I first moved to Hyde Park, someone told me that the University of Chicago has the second largest police force in the State of Illinois. Which is not suprising. Hyde Park is an island, a bubble surrounded by the rest of Chicago’s South Side; a bubble in which, on any given day, you can overhear brilliant and privileged people discussing the finer points of Fourteenth Century Italian poetry or the effect of German Pietism on the Radical Reformation.

The University police make this possible, defending the safety and property of those privileged few (including me) from all the dangers that lurk (real and imagined) just a few blocks away. Only because of this nearly invisible cordon can we believe, even for a moment – that Fourteenth Century poetry is critical subject of discussion and (often heated) debate on a fine spring morning in a world such as this.

I am as guilty as anyone.

My time in Chicago was made immeasurably better by Cornelius. I liked him a lot and remain deeply grateful for all he has done for me – but why did it never occur to me that at night, when all the work was done, I stayed there in Hyde Park, protected by my skin, my class and the invisible force field of the police – while Cornelius, also because of his skin and his class – went…somewhere else?

I have no idea where or how Cornelius lived when he wasn’t at work. But I bet it was different then where I did, and do – and always will.

I feel especially sick about this today, as I think about how many sermons and prayers and theological arguments I have aimed at the interlocking evils of racism, classism and all kinds of other “isms.” How short they fall – how pallid they seem to me right now – written by a white guy from the safety of office or living room for audiences made up of other (mostly) white, privileged folks to read or listen to in the comfortable safety of churches and living rooms.

There isn’t a sermon here for me today, or a prayer, or an academic analysis – much less a call to action. Maybe there will be tomorrow, or the next day – but for now there is just grief.
My heart and my prayers go out to your family, Cornelius, and to yours, Charles, and to all those who love you and are hurting right now. My heart and my prayers, for whatever they are worth, go out to all you whose names I know and whose names I don’t know; to all you unique, special, and irreplaceable people whose lives are recorded and reduced by the detached prose of back-page newsprint.

Amen.