When Katherine was growing up in the 60s, Elvis was very popular. Katherine and all of her friends were crazy about him around this time. Other than Elvis Presley there were two other major things that stood out in the 60s. Those two things were integration and Martin Luther Kings assassination. Integration came about in 1964 and it was huge. It was crazy to see all of the different reactions. Some people were absolutely on board while others were not happy about it at all. Katherine absolutely loved the idea of us all trying to treat others as equals. She says that she never quite understood why she couldn't be friends with someone just because they weren't the same skin color as her. She says that although her parents weren't exactly racist they weren't very open about how they felt towards African Americans either. Her parents didn't discriminate against them, but they also didn't show any feeling towards them. Katherine however didn't view them as anything other than part of the family. She knew how people should be treated. In 1968 Katherine was the child of a middle class white family. She grew up living with both of her parents along with her younger sister and older brother. She really didn't know too much about racial inequality other than the fact that African American women worked around there house and did things for them, but she looked at it as nothing other than just that. She says she thought of them as "part of the family too." She got along with them well and she just thought they were there to help her family out. She never thought of them as being inferiors to her and her family because there skins were different colors. A typical day for Katherine was that she would wake up early in the morning for school, eat breakfast with her family, and be ready to leave for school. Her dad would drop her and her brother off for school and go to work, they walked home together while mom stayed home with there younger sister and there dad was still at work. When they got home they would do homework and Katherine would do whatever around the house while her brother would go hang out with his friends until "supper." He was always sure to be home before there dad because they would always eat as soon as he got home. If he wasn't there before their father, he would be in trouble. Katherine feels like the main thing that's different in a typical day for us than a typical day for her was the closeness and family time. She feels like today we have strayed off from that and it's not as important as it used to be. She points out that they had a routine everyday and they stuck to it. They always ate every meal together and they would just sit and talk about their day and everything that was going on outside of home. They shared everything with each other. She says it was always like this even as she got older. She also adds that even though her brother had his "crowd" that he would always be with he never blew off family time for them. She says she feels today that things are just much different and kind of "opposite" than they used to be. Katherine remembers this day being extremely scary. She didn't really know what was going on other than the facts that something bad was going to happen. She didn't really know what to do or how she could help. She knew it must have been something terrible because her father stayed home from work that day. No one left the house at all. She was scared for her family's maids because she felt like something bad was going to happen to them and she saw that they were even more terrified than her and her family were. It was just so different for them to all be home together and have to stay there. She knew her dad stayed home in order to protect them from something "bad that was coming," but that's all she knew. She was terrified. She was at home once the word about the assassination was finally out. Even though the "bad thing" had already happened she was still terrified after hearing the news. She didn't really know how to react since she was still pretty young. She was in her house when they received the news. She remembers her maids being extremely sad and upset, although they tried hard not to show their reactions. Her parents showed no initial reaction, which she thought was weird. She never really talked to her dad about it, but soon after it happened she decided to sit down with her mom and have a conversation about the whole thing. Her mom didn't think it was right, but she says she couldn't show any emotion or the way she really felt because it wasn't accepted, which still kind of confused Katherine, but she better understood after she talked with her mom than she did when it initially happened. Katherine didn't really know how to react to the situation. She was confused by the whole thing. She felt like she should've been sad, but at the same time maybe she had no reason to. She saw different emotions from everyone all around her. Her maid s were obviously extremely sad and upset by it, even though they tried their best not to show it. Her parents didn't really have any reaction, so she felt maybe the best way for her to react was with no reaction. She said they attempted to make the rest of the night as normal as possible, but no matter how hard they tried, it just wasn't normal. The night after King was shot was very chaotic, and abnormal. Katherine says her parents did the best that they could to try to keep things pretty normal in their house for her and her siblings, but it was pretty hard. She says she was happy with how strong her parents her parents were for her. Her family all stayed in the house together that night, so that everyone was together and safe. The city was extremely chaotic, out of control, and confused. Katherine didn't know a whole lot about Dr. King before he died other than the major things like his "I Have A Dream" speech and the fact that he was the main reason that integration was able to exist. After his death she was able to learn more about him in such a unique way. She had her maids tell her things all about him because she wanted to know exactly who this man was and what it was that made him want to risk his life and want to make this big difference in the world. Katherine believes that life changed greatly after King's death. She says that she feels like at first people didn't really know how to react to it, so things were pretty chaotic, but once it sunk in people seemed to be more grateful for what he did and the many sacrifices he made. She said she thinks his death is actually what helped being people together more.