{"id":1952,"date":"2006-12-29T09:31:03","date_gmt":"2006-12-29T17:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2006\/12\/road_trip_with_al_sharpton.html"},"modified":"2008-01-24T15:08:14","modified_gmt":"2008-01-24T20:08:14","slug":"road_trip_with","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/12\/road_trip_with.html","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip . . . With Al Sharpton!"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you happened to see a Ford Club Wagon van speeding up I-95 sometime in the last couple of days, that could have been James Brown<\/a>:<\/p>\n

William Murrell, who had shuttled the music legend around for the past 15 years, drove Brown’s body on an 800-mile pilgrimage from Augusta, Ga., to Harlem — a trip that took him from 10 p.m. Wednesday to 10 a.m. yesterday.<\/p>\n

“I drove him in life, and I drove him in death,” said Murrell, 47. “I can’t say no to Mr. Brown.”<\/p>\n

The coffin had arrived too late at the funeral home for staff there to make a scheduled flight out of Atlanta. And the remaining flights that could carry the remains were all booked as well.<\/p>\n

Without a second thought, Murrell yanked the backseats out of his Ford van and loaded up. He and a co-worker piloted the Ford Club Wagon van up I-95 with the Rev. Al Sharpton, the funeral home director and Brown’s 24-karat gold-plated coffin in back.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The incredible journey started with a frantic phone call from the C.A. Reid Sr. funeral home around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday telling Murrell there was trouble.<\/p>\n

The custom-designed coffin — which needed its blue lining replaced with a special one of white satin — was running late.<\/p>\n

There was no time to make the 2-1\/2-hour trip from Augusta to Atlanta in time for the 7:45 p.m. scheduled Delta flight — or any other flights that night — they said.<\/p>\n

All charter flights were booked, including Murrell’s two planes. And eager crowds were already massing in Harlem to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

“They had to get him to the Apollo. They tried everything,” said Murrell, “It was my last chance to give him a ride of a lifetime.”<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

So Murrell didn’t hesitate in taking out the back three seats of the van, snagging a co-worker and racing to the funeral home to pick up the coffin, Sharpton and the funeral director.<\/p>\n

And as if Brown himself were clearing their way, they zipped along the darkened roads at high speed.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t go over 90,” Murrell chuckled yesterday, hours before he was set to drive Brown’s coffin on the return trip to Georgia.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you happened to see a Ford Club Wagon van speeding up I-95 sometime in the last couple of days, that could have been James Brown: William Murrell, who had shuttled the music legend around for the past 15 years, drove Brown’s body on an 800-mile pilgrimage from Augusta, Ga., to Harlem — a trip […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1952\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}