I chose to interview Ms. Frankie, my grandmother. She was 28 at the time and was living in Humboldt, Tennessee, just about an hour out of Memphis. She was sitting at her house watching the television at the time of the shooting. She found out when all of a sudden, the show she was watching turned to the news and wait that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated. She said that living that close to Memphis at the time made everything sad, and nothing but the shooting was on television. She got out of work the day of his funeral because she worked for the government at the Arsenal.
In 1968, she would wake up at 5:30 a.m. and get ready to go to work at the Arsenal. The first thing she would do was leave her newborn baby, my father, at home with her husband,my grandfather, and leave to pick up the babysitter and bring the babysitter to her home in Humboldt, Tennessee. She would then leave with her husband to go to work. She would then come back home and pick up the babysitter from my grandmothers and take her to her own home. After that, she would cook dinner , eat, and get ready for bed. She said that her daily routine now is very different than it was back then. First of all, She is retired so she sleeps later. Her kids are grown up so she does not have to take care of them. Her routine is very different now than it was in 1968.
The day King was assassinated was just a normal day for her ,until the shooting happened of course. After she found out from the news, her work was calling her because it was a very large deal for the government for whom she worked for. She said life after the assassination was very hectic for a while. She said she felt sad because he we shot, but before the shooting she didn't really know who he was. She was at her house watching television when the shooting happened. There was not much of a reaction, people were just very quiet while they mourned over the death of such a great person. After all of the phone calls, nothing changed throughout the night except for the fact that all you saw on television was the shooting.
The night after King was shot, my Grandmother just sat at home and watched television about the shooting all night long. She said she didn't sleep very much that night because she was very intrigued into what happened at the shooting. The city that night and the next day was very hectic, sad and mournful.
She didn't think much about King before the shooting considering she didn't really know much about him. After the shooting, she realized he was working towards peace between black and white people. She really admired him for that because she thought there should be more of that. She said she wished she had known more about him and watched more of his speeches while he was still alive.
Life did not change much after his death, besides it being hectic at work. People did not really want to talk about it because they got upset when they thought about the shooting. She said people tried to solve their problems more peacefully because they wanted to try and make his life and speeches worth it. People's attitudes changed towards each other because the learned to appreciate their life because it could be gone in a second. The tried to be nicer and more peaceful with each other.
At the time of the shooting, she had a very hard and busy life. She was trying to work hard to earn money for her family. She had a one month old baby at the time. Also, she was married to James Horner, my grandfather. She never changed her last name because she never felt like she needed to. Her life when Martin Luther King, Jr was shot was very different than her life today.