The name of my interviewee is Thomas P. In 1968, Thomas was a young fireman of Frasier at the age of thirty-two at the time that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. As a side job, he was a meat cutter. He said the period of unrest first started when the garbage truck strike started. Many people blew it way our of proportion and quickly took sides. The day that King was assassinated, Thomas said his day was pretty normal but that people were still in a state of unrest, prejudice, and segregation. But, he still believes that this type of attitude is still occurring in today's society.
Thomas states that what he remembers most about the assassination of King was all of the rioting that took place soon after. He says that their station was getting fire calls nonstop all night and that he felt afraid all night. As a result of these riots, all the fire trucks in the area had to have a police escort to every fire site. The riots lasted at least a week. Something that Thomas remembers the most about the night that King was shot was when they were on their way to one fire and their fire truck backfired and they thought that they were being shot at by some rioters. He says that him and all his men were scared out of their minds! But after King's death, people became a lot more defensive and more and more people began to carry guns.
Thomas told me that his opinion didn't change of King after he was shot. As a result of the assassination, Thomas says that he doesn't think the subject matter became any more important, it just caused more unrest in the city. He also told me that he had always thought of King as a good man who just had a more realistic opinion. Overall, Thomas thought that King was a good Christian man that lived a godly life.