There are two subjects about which Ric King has a vast storehouse of knowledge gained through personal experience. One is the sociocultural history of Columbus over the last nearly 70 years. The other is the breadth of cultures throughout the world.
His story really starts in a one-bedroom apartment at his grandmother’s house at 935 Reed St.
“We had three generations living in that house,” he says. “My mother and father and my brother and I all occupied that apartment.”
Before too long, they moved to the Circle Drive area in East Columbus. It was one of a handful of neighborhoods in the city where African Americans could live, along with the Reed and Ninth streets area, Jackson Street from Eighth to 10th, and Union Street from 14th to 16th.
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This was the early 1960s. Cummins Engine Co. was already diversifying its workforce.
“It was bringing all kinds of brilliant people with degrees from prestigious universities to town, but the black ones couldn’t find housing. Realtors wouldn’t show them houses. Irwin Miller (Cummins chairman) began putting them up in the Grand Avenue townhouse apartments, but they rarely stayed too long,” he recalls.
Miller reached out to a group of African Americans that included King’s parents, asking why he couldn’t keep management-level people he was hiring. They explained the housing situation. Miller then began buying houses in several areas of the city and selling them to interested African American buyers. The Kings moved to the west side as a result.
Ric’s father was the first person of color to wear a law enforcement uniform in Bartholomew County. The sheriff at the time, 1968, hired him for a part-time deputy position. The elder King also worked at Golden Foundry.
The group that conferred with Miller formed a committee to challenge area restaurants.
“They’d get all dressed up and go someplace, only to be told, “’The chef’s not here,’ or ‘We’re out of a lot of ingredients tonight,’” King recalls.
He wanted to go to the prom at Columbus High School, from which he graduated in 1969. Asking a white girl was out of the question, and he was related to pretty much every girl of color. He asked a black girl from Franklin, but CHS administration gave him a thumbs down, on the premise that his date would be from out of town.
King went to work at Cummins after graduation. A number of white buddies used to go to a downtown establishment after work for a beer and a tenderloin sandwich. When King turned 21, he joined them one evening. The proprietor asked King what was wrong with the back door.
“I said, ‘I don’t use back doors.’ His face got really red. He threw a coaster down in front of me and asked what I wanted. I told him and he said, ‘Is this to go?’ I said, ‘No, I’ll eat it here.’”
That bar owner eventually came around, and King was invited to his home multiple times.
King has worked in a number of interesting areas at Cummins, but his true passion, which has occupied nearly all of his vacation time since the late 1970s, is scuba diving.
“I’ve always loved the water, and I always loved travel,” he says. “My favorite course in high school was geography. As a kid, I’d ride my bike over to Harrison Lake and watch scuba divers and fantasize.”
A bout of polio as a child left him with a paralyzed quadriceps in his right leg. His primary doctor told him about an experimental surgery that involved removing the quad and wrapping a portion of the hamstring muscle around to the front. The doctor said that it could restore his ability to walk to some degree or completely take it away.
“We had a family meeting about it, and I said I wanted to do it.” The surgery was performed at Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. “The doctor recommended swimming therapy afterward,” says King. “My parents installed a pool in the backyard, and I swam every chance I got.”
In 1977, while on a backpacking vacation in Europe, he struck up a conversation with some scuba divers in southern France, who told him he’d need to become certified in order to pursue scuba.
Upon getting his certification, he was hooked. He’s been to the Cayman Islands 99 times. He’s been to the Maldives, Fiji and Aruba, to name but a few destinations. He became an instructor in 1983, which has led to taking groups to various locales, as well as training first responders throughout Indiana.
Honduras encountered a problem with deterioration of its barrier reef due to the fishing nets of big seafood corporations dragging up all sorts of sea life, including mammals. King was hired to ensure the safety of marine biologists and oceanographers selected to conduct reef studies.
When not working at Cummins or scuba diving, King is civically involved. He’s been on the police review board since its inception in 1992. There was distrust of police among minorities, and the mayor at the time, Bob Stewart, replaced his police chief over his reluctance to consider changes that would increase department accountability.
At this point, King lives with his dogs, Rhythm and Blooz, on the property to which his family moved decades ago. He’s looking forward to making trip number 100 to the Caymans later this year. It’s a good life.
“My bucket list is about empty,” he says.
