Brother Martin McMurtrey, 1921-2007

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad stories of the death of kings

-- Shakespeare, Richard II

Brother Martin McMurtrey, S.M. died on Friday, November 9, in, as they say, "the 87th year of his life and the 69th year of his religious profession." I have always loved the solemn dignity of that formulation, and its elegance is very appropriate to "Brother Mac's" life.

The San Antonio Express-News did a nice article about him, but it barely scratched the surface of his impact on a whole generation of students. A fuller obituary is attached below, but it also fails to capture what a great spirit he was.

I love Martin McMurtrey. He was my English teacher my sophomore year at Central Catholic High School in San Antonio, where he taught for almost 50 years. In 1970, he pulled me and, I think, six other guys out of our usual English classes so that we could work with him on a special project -- writing an analysis of poverty in San Antonio and what we could do about it. It was one of the transforming experiences of my young life.

We met every day and did research, studying all kinds of reports and government documents. Gleaning the information from libraries, the city and the federal government was a huge learning experience. I remember how shocked I was to discover that San Antonio was the poorest major city in the United States (and, for all I know, still is). We wrote what I am sure is a very forgettable report -- but the experience of writing it still remains with and shapes me to this day.

But Brother Mac was not content to let that be the extent of our immersion in the learning process. He took all of us with him to St. Agnes Parish every week, where we taught religious education classes to impoverished schoolchildren. Like our report, I am sure the CCD lessons I taught were forgettable -- but McMurtrey's commitment to the poor and the eye-opening difference between my life and those kids' made a huge impression on me, then and now.

For fifty years, Martin McMurtrey was that kind of teacher and mentor, a transformational figure in the lives of thousands of future leaders.

Sometime in the early 1990s, I was talking to Jan Jarboe Russell, who followed a stint as a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News with a writing gig at Texas Monthly and a terrific book on Lady Bird Johnson. I was then working for Governor Ann Richards, but Jan and I had known each other since I was an organizer for COPS and MCA, two powerfully effective community organizations in San Antonio.

We were talking about growing up in San Antonio and she asked me about significant influences. I mentioned Brother Mac and how he'd broadened my worldview and sharpened my sense of social justice. She told me that, in previous conversations with both Henry Cisneros and Ernie Cortes (the founder of COPS and one of the most influential community organizers of the last half-century), they'd both mentioned Brother Mac as well.

It'd be a great story to talk with all the people whose lives he transformed.