Karl Moody - A Ledbetter Street Legend
by Jolivette 'Djali' Anderson (c) September 26, 2020
We all have a place inside of us that takes us to our childhood. The smells, sounds, tastes and other sensory receivers and perceptions offer comfort, solace, laughter, or even tears and a little regret.
When I think of my childhood in Shreveport, Louisiana, my minds eye takes me back. My mind goes back to farm plows and steam rollers digging and pressing tar covered streets in my neighborhood- the segregated Hollywood Neighborhood on Ledbetter Street.
The families in the Hollywood Neighborhood had migrated from small rural communities to find work. They set about their day to day lives in what academics call "the heteronomative nuclear family. This is a fancy way of saying a man, woman, and their children live together in a house, in a place that has certain rules and regulations that must be followed.
We witnessed the good, the bad, the indifferent, and the ugly of the human experience, as all humans do, but there are moments, there are people that capture us, encapsulate us into a space and time that help to define us and pushes us to imagine the possibilities outside of the places society carved out for our parents to be. Those families gave us what we needed to be good, decent, and kind human beings.
We had heroes and sheroes. We admired, respected, looked up to and loved them because they did something that made us proud to live in our little Black neighborhood. We were proud to say I played at Hattie Perry Park, proud to say I bought coconut cookies from Mr. Buck's front porch store, proud to say I used to wave at Reverend Gant at Calvary Baptist Church, proud to say I went to Hollywood Elementary School, and proud to say I lived on Ledbetter Street.
One of the proudest moments of my childhood, a moment that defined greatness in our imagination was when our neighbor who played basketball for the Woodlawn High School Knights under Coach Melvin Russell created what my dad called PANDEMONIUM in the C.E. Byrd High School gym.
With seconds left on the clock, down by one point, long before the 3 pointer was a real thing, I sat in the bleachers with my head in my hand, crying because Woodlawn was about to lose a major game. It could have been a playoff, I can't recall all of the details, but what I do remember is that feeling of disappointment that we were about to lose this game. I glanced up through my tears to see my cousin Michael Smith - or that other really tall guy whose name I can't recall - get a rebound from a missed free throw, pass the ball to Karl Moody who took a few steps, aimed the ball for the basket, shoot the shot and the ball dropped with a 'swish' -- nothing but 'net' or ALL DRAWERS as we would say back in the day.
With that one shot, before the buzzer sounded, local TV station filming the final seconds, our childhood playmate and friend became a local celebrity to many, a hero and legend of Ledbetter Street for us. At some point, many of us tried to make the 'Karl Moody Shot' on a basketball court at school or in the gym at Hattie Perry Park.
On September 11, 2020, Karl DeWayne Moody Sr. died. He had been living in Nashville, TN for several years. My brother Jethro who lived in Clarksville, TN would run into him a few times over the years. Karl was four years my senior, the same age as my Cousin Michael and my sister Jackie who played on the girls team that year.
According to my brother, Karl did not remember him without being prompted to recall his older sister, likely because Karl had gone off to college while Jethro was still in elementary school, but that is the beauty of being part of Black families that occupied a common space, who gave their children common experiences. We looked up to Karl Moody because of that winning shot at the game and the subsequent local fame, but most importantly, what he did with that fame, how that fame motivated all the younger ones in our neighborhood to try to be like him was something he may not have even known.
He continued to smile, to joke with us and to laugh. He had an inner joy that exuded confidence, pride, self-respect, dignity, and human kindness. He was raised by a loving family and he spread love and kindness to others. These are my memories of the making of a local legend, a Ledbetter Street legend who through his actions gave little Black children in our neighborhood permission to imagine and seek out greatness in the world at home and the world at large.
Rest. Sweet rest Karl Moody. May your soul take flight and may angels greet you on your journey home. I pray the Creator be extremely pleased with your good works and say 'Servant, well done'.
