Mr. Chester was a 27 years old man when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. He lived in a duplex on a street named Allendale in Memphis, Tennessee.
Mr. Chester was a chorus teacher at Treadwell. His ordinary day consisted of leaving his house around seven o'clock a.m, arriving at school around seven fifteen. He had four chorus classes: two of them were high school classes and the other two were junior high classes. He also taught spelling. After the shooting, there seeming to be a greater amount of police presence around the city which is understandable.
After people heard about Martin Luther King Jr, many of his students were uptight and there was plenty of tension around the school, city, and neighborhoods. Mr. Chester had heard from the students that they were ignoring the curfew those nights because let's face it, they're teenagers. There was some tension on city buses between white people and black people because this was before school buses were going on. Mr. Chester was at home when he heard about the assassination on the evening news. That night he had locked the doors which is reasonable considering there was an assassination that day. He was very concerned if this was going to start race riots or dangerous things people may do. The next day at school, the administrators had told all the teachers at school to act like it was a normal day, and if any students asked about the assassination that the teachers would have to answer truthfully.
Before Martin Luther King Jr's death, he wasn't very fond of the fellow. He thought that he was a fraud. He thought that he was just trying to lead many African Americans to do illegal things and start stuff up. He thinks very differently today. He thinks he is a great hero in civil rights. He is embarrassed that he thought that of him but it's the truth and you can't change that.
After his death, many peoples' attitudes started to change; slowly, but surely. There was a lot of emotional talk about schools. Many white families were getting scared of black people. White families started to move out of neighborhoods so they didn't have to send their children to school with black children. This created more white schools and black schools. White people had started to send their kids to private schools. This is when many private schools started to develop, such as Harding, ECS, and Briarcrest.
This was a very tragic day in history. Mr. King was always be loved by many and his legacy has made a major impact on many people. This is just one side of the story that day while there were many more.