Charlton Battle would take any drug he could lay his hands on “to change me from being me.” Heroin, crack, acid, K2 — anything. Because of his involvement with illegal street drugs, Charlton has been in prison off and on for most of his adult life. Now clean and several years out of prison, he is on a spiritual journey to accept himself for who he is.
The initial steps required him to uncover the wounds of his childhood. “I felt rejected as a kid by my mother and father.” No matter what he did, Charlton said it wasn’t quite right, wasn’t good enough, didn’t measure up to the accomplishments and talents of his siblings. Somehow, there was never enough money or enough love. In search of understanding and reconciliation, he was shocked to learn from his mother only two years ago that the man he had thought of as his father wasn’t.
This would be deeply disturbing to learn at any age. But to learn this at age 43 rocked what he had believed to have been the early foundations of his life. This knowledge required a complete adjustment to his thinking about himself and his family.
“The longest journey is the journey inward,” said Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish diplomat and second Secretary-General of the United Nations. Charlton embarked on this painful journey several years ago. Who was that young man born into this world with such promise, but who somehow went off the rails? “Who am I?” he asks himself. “Why did I do lots of stupid things as a youth? Why did I do things wrong?”
Unfortunately, he has discovered there isn’t one big answer. Just a series of small answers we each must discover for ourselves. Many among us spend a lifetime avoiding these questions. Yet, to become fully alive, we must answer them. Charlton has come to this wisdom. He has also come to understand that he is living in a society in which many people automatically hate him for being a black man.
This is a harsh condemnation. Yet one only need look at the vitriol directed against President Barack Obama by many whites and especially many white Republicans to accept why Charlton believes this is true. It appears that simply because the president is a black man, many of our fellow Americans refuse to acknowledge his legitimacy as the duly elected President of the United States.
Why do so many in our country seem to despise black men? Charlton hasn’t found the answer to this question. Accepting this concept required him to understand in his heart that many Americans will only look at him as a black man and never as a man who happens to be black, with his own uniqueness.
Sadly, Charlton said, in America “black men are trained to hate themselves.” Many African-American males give up when they realize this. Why fight such an evil force? However, Charlton is not a man to give in. One of the strongest pillars in his life is the artistic talent he discovered within himself as a kid. Drawing. “I started drawing and doing water colors in elementary school.”
As a youth, no one encouraged his artistic talent and it lay dormant until, in his later adult years, he saw a man incarcerated in the same prison as him drawing a pastel. Intrigued, Charlton began to do this himself, which brought his artistic talent to the fore. Using pastel sticks to create a work of art became his passion. This art form has also allowed Charlton to express himself.
He is still trying to get on the right track and still working on his issues of self-hatred. He has also come to the wisdom that before you can truly love others, you must learn to love yourself. “You can spend too much time helping others to try and win their love, and then not have enough time to help yourself.”
During this intense spiritual journey, Charlton has also been struggling to work to work his way out of the city’s shelter system for the past four months. As of now, Charlton has been able to move into an apartment, but he is still waiting to learn if he was approved for benefits that will help subsidize it. He says he can handle the monthly rent, but has yet to afford the deposit. He has the keys but no lease as of yet. “I’ve got one foot in the shelter and one foot in an apartment.”
In the meantime, he began selling Street Sense six weeks ago to earn those funds another way. “Everything’s not okay yet, but I’m on the way up.”
Charlton feels good about his future. While he has always thought of his painting and writing as hobbies, the encouragement of people in the last few years has helped him believe that perhaps it is more. Perhaps he can be a creative professional. Yet he still isn’t certain what to express. He wants to give a message to the world, but what message should he give?
Perhaps the joyful rediscovery of his talent and his passion for simply painting and writing about what he sees around himself is the message. People in jail, at AA, NA and anger management meetings have continuously told Charlton he has a good spirit. Charlton Battle is finally starting to believe them. “I think it’s my calling to be able to see the pain and suffering around me,” he said. “To help people see their own pain and suffering, as long as they don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean no harm.”
