His Next Move

Video

At the Chess Tournament

Highschool freshman Marte Garner competed May 17, 2008 in the 'Bum Rush the Boards' chess tournament, designed to promote the idea of strategic struggle to the hip-hop generation.

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It is Tuesday, four days before the tournament, and Marte rides the Blue Line from Eastern, then hops on the U6 bus heading to the rec.

The center, a squat brick building pierced with skylights, rises like an oasis in a place where kids walk alone. A safe haven, away from shootings, away from cursing, away from neglect. A place where kids learn to use chess strategies to save themselves, with hip-hop culture as the backdrop for lessons not only in chess but in DJing, art, fashion design, poetry and the lives of cultural revolutionaries.

On a warm night, chessboards are lined up on folding tables in the concrete courtyard in front of the center. Beyoncé's lyrics from the song "Irreplaceable" beat in the background: "You must not know 'bout me/you must not know 'bout me." Young teachers speak of Shaka Zulu, Joan of Arc, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Harriet Tubman, Gandhi, Frida Kahlo, Ho Chi Minh, assigning each historical figure a piece on the chessboard. Tubman is a knight who helped slaves escape to freedom; Sitting Bull is a pawn who defended his land against invasion; Nelson Mandela is a rook who led his nation out of apartheid; Malcolm X is a pawn who offered a new racial and political consciousness.

At the chess table under the night sky, Marte's face is smooth, his body thin like a carved piece on a chessboard. Marte used to live in Benning Park, before he moved to Barry Farms. But each day on the bus, passing funeral homes, carry-outs, teddy bear memorials to the dead, he returns to his old neighborhood for the after-school program, the Urban Arts Academy, a nonprofit group. Started during this academic year, it is run by a group of young teachers hoping to give their students just a little more than they might learn in school by teaching them how to get across the board of life, safely.

Many of the children, says Goldie Deane, the academy's director, are growing up in an environment where the future is a distant concept. "The reality is Ward 7 has one of the highest statistics of homicide and murder and abortions," she says. "When you live amongst that reality, the idea of planning for 10 years is not smart when your brother didn't make it. The students work on a life map. We teach that you have the opportunity to plan what you want to do in life."

Marte is trying to connect the dots. "Chess is like life," he explains that evening. He pauses. "Then it kind of isn't because it is still a game."

He wants to be a child psychologist when he grows up because he knows how to make people feel better. As the middle child of three sons, Marte feels he is the family's protector, his mother, Tonya Garner, an office worker, says later. He thinks a lot about things, too.

"He is quiet, not a loner, but sometimes he likes to be alone," she says. "He can sit in the house for days at a time, and it's okay with him." He doesn't like to go outside in the new neighborhood unless he has to.

Marte describes his neighborhood as "terrible" because it is so violent.

"He will keep himself away from that. We all get scared when we hear gunshots, but you also have people so used to it it doesn't bother them. Marte listens to everything. He will say, 'Ma, did you hear the gunshots?' I will say no. He will say, 'Didn't you hear that?' I say, 'Marte, you are listening too hard.' "

His world is this kind of place: One night at the center, a mother rushes in in a panic because her daughter has tarried too long. The mother is anxious. The clock says 9:07. It is dark outside. "Marshaé! Where have you been?" says the mother, scolding. "How are you going to get home if they start shooting?" She says it's all right for her daughter to talk more about chess and life, but right now it is dangerous to be away from home. "It's time for her to go inside."