I interviewed my gramma, Carol B. Carol was 26 in the year 1968. She was working at Methodist Hospital and married to my granddaddy, who worked as a Memphis fireman. They lived in the East Memphis area, in what is now Orange Mound. She said that, at the time, it was not nearly as bad as it is today. It was just a nice neighborhood full of friendly people. There wasn’t as much crime or drug problems in the area. It was simply “good times.”
A normal day would go something like this: work assigned shift at hospital, come home, cook dinner. It was nothing really exciting, just an ordinary life. Her life has changed a lot since then. Now she is retired, and my granddad has passed away. She said that she remembers the day MLK was assassinated very well. She was working a 3-11 shift at the hospital. When they got the news, everyone just stopped. They stopped what they were doing and immediately began talking about it and trying to find out more info. My granddad, her husband, was off that day, but had to be called into work. “It was all just incredibly shocking” says my gramma. Her parents were driving in from Atlanta that day and she was really worried that the roads would be blocked off. Carol says, “It was just shocking more than anything. I don’t think anyone imaged that it would happen here.”
Later into the night, things gradually got worse. There were fires, looting, rioting; people were even throwing bottles. Someone actually threw a bottle at my granddad’s car and it busted the window. The tragic event affected all of Memphis; although, it was worse in the black neighborhoods. After it happened, she stayed at work through the rest of her shift. She was scared about driving home, but she made it safely. She was also thankful that her parents made it here okay. She stayed home and just waited to see what would happen next.
When asked what she thought of Dr. King before the shooting, this is what she said, “I hadn’t really kept up with him. I knew he was a good speaker, but the protests he was speaking about did not really pertain to me. I just didn’t really think that much about him”. She also says that this was how most of the white people felt. They had heard of him, but did not pay much attention because the protests were not based on problems that related to their lives. When asked how she felt about MLK after the shooting, this is how she responded, “I of course thought that the event was tragic. It made me want to find out more about him. I later learned out about his greater personality”. Carol says that, yes, life did change after all of this, but it was gradual. Also, this particular thing was not the beginning or spark of the change. The change was heavily based in the black community. The incident made people take more time and actually think about the problems they faced.
When asked the question, “Do you think things changed for better or worse?” This was her response, “I actually think things changed for the worse. There’s obviously more verbal/harsh racism now than in that time. Of course there was racism in 1968, but it was a different type of racism. Back then, it was more of ‘they do their thing and we do ours and if those things happen to meet then that will be fine’. Now, racism is mean and brutal and rude. Now almost every problem we hear about has racism involved.
She says that what she learned from this experience is that black people do expect to be treated a certain way, but it’s our choice to decide how we are going to treat them. Also, the stigma of blacks has changed since all of this, and other issues have come up. She also says that she cannot stress enough how different things are now since 1968. Is there still racism? Just a different type was her answer. So was the shooting of MLK really necessary? All in all, she says that this day was something tragic but also something that no one could ever forget.