dark-colored woods. A creative and daring diva's short, unprocessed hair was dyed a shocking blond. Neon
green and electric blue drawstring Benetton book bags gave away the students who actually carried books
home. Muslim boys from the Islamic School of New Jersey on Brandford Place would sprinkle the crowd with
white, green and intricately embroidered kufis, the girls in headscarves that blew in the wind with each passing
NJ Transit bus. Kwame impersonators and X-Clan wannabes in combat boots painted the strip with
polka-dotted, baggy shirts or T-shirts in the African liberation colors of red, black, yellow and green.
As Arts, Central, Science, Newark Tech and other high schools students of Newark waited for buses, got an
after school McDonalds snack or stared dreamily at some attractive, mysterious girl named "Asia," (who
probably wasn't of Asian descent, by the way) a generation of kids learned to appreciate socializing sans
violence, beauty without conformity and art without boundaries.
It was addictive, this almost daily Broad and Market pilgrimage. It was a subculture within a subculture. Not
many in mainstream America knew that the 31 bus line was nicknamed the "dirty-one," or that renowned
playwright Amiri Baraka's children went to Shabazz and University High Schools. At the time, no one at MTV
cared or understood the absolute high two best friends shared after purchasing matching Champion T-shirts
from Dr. Jays or Express clothing stores. The feeling of a street vendor's incense fragrance blowing across your
face as you crossed the street with a Now or Later candy staining your tongue green is still very much an
obscurity today.
About a block toward Essex County College, a vendor, whose voice could probably be heard within a
one-mile radius would yell, "Check it out!" As I grew older, my fear of him subsided, although I never purchased
any of his wares.
When the Los Angeles police officers were acquitted for beating the heaven and hell out of Rodney King,
Broad and Market was a danger zone and the site of a short-lived revolution. Woolworth's gates had closed, and
many other stores followed, for fear of rioters expressing their angst over the bogus verdict. While most of the
workers, students and downtown shoppers left the area quickly some curious onlookers and stragglers
remained. I was one of them.
A skinny black man, probably in his early twenties yelled, "Are ya'll ready to start the revolution?"
I hung out on that corner for about ten minutes, knowing that I should have been on a bus headed toward my
parents' ice cream parlor in East Orange. There were no vendors selling black Bart Simpson T-shirts that day.
There were, however, very fearful white people rushing to get home from work. They were speed walking to their
parked cars in garages or maybe to Penn Station to catch their trains. For almost every white man I saw pass
through the crowd on the corner, there was a young teen-aged boy from Newark that would push, yell insults or
purposely bump into him. After each petty assault on behalf of Rodney King, the stragglers or high school kids
on the corner would award the assaulting daredevil with applause as if they had witnessed an accomplished
child playing at his first piano recital.
A bald-headed man walked passed the crowd only to have a glass bottle shattered on his head. I remember
the clapping that followed. Even my own hands clapped and my lips smiled. I knew that this Twilight Zonish,
supposedly righteous expression of anger was wrong, but I understood why many of the teenagers of Newark
were pissed off.
That was one of the darker days on Broad and Market. The Catholic school girls who wore the gold chains
that drug-dealer boyfriends had bought them (before they ended up pregnant) would soon bring back the
familiar sight of plaid and khaki to the intersection. Boisterous laughter centered around some adolescent joke,
circles of freestyling hip-hopsters and the loud preacher with the bullhorn always came back. The sweet smell of
a vendor's incense returned.
And then we all grew up, got jobs, caught AIDS, went to college, moved away, died or became teachers,
crack heads, journalists, lawyers, moms or cashiers.
For me, the Broad and Market intersection is no longer a place where dreadlocked, baggy-jeaned brothers
with names like ''Peace'' or ''True-Borne'' dance in clunky black shoes. It is a place where you constantly look
over your shoulder checking that the hands behind you aren't in your pocketbook. It is a place where
Timberland boots will scrape the back of your heels if you don't move fast enough.
The intersection of Broad and Market now invites a different crowd of youth to witness a splendor that I am
no longer gifted enough to detect, or should I say a crowd of youth that has lost the ability to detect the gifts
within themselves.
Ayesha J. Gallion attended Mt. Vernon Elementary School in Ivy Hill, Science High School in downtown Newark and Morgan
State University in Baltimore, Maryland. She has been an English teacher for the Newark Public School system and is an associate
producer in the editorial department at NJ.com. Ms. Gallion currently resides in East Orange with her husband, Mutaalib.
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