Hugh P. lived in the developing little town of Bartlett when Martin Luther King Jr. decided to come to Memphis, Tennessee for his second time, since the first time he had been scared away by one of his friends being killed inside the city. Hugh didn't really care much for what King was doing, in both being peaceful and his fight for equality, he was more focused on his wife-to-be, his studies, and working for his father's business. He would later go on one day to own that business with his son and son-in-law. The United States at the time was already quite volatile, with the Vietnam War being protested on, Robert Kennedy having been killed, and the youth of the nation attempting to avoid the draft best they could.
On that fateful day when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot outside the Lorraine Motel, Hugh saw a picture from a photographer who came to photograph the site of the shooting, the thing he recalls that shocked him the most was how desolate the place was. No mourners, no police, no gawkers from the public. At that time, major riots were beginning to break out all across Memphis and the country by African-Americans over King's death, prompting the Memphis police to enforce a strict curfew to keep the riots from going out of their control late at night. Being young and foolish, Hugh and his friends thought the curfew didn't apply to them.
Hugh and his friends snuck out of their houses and began heading towards another group of friends' houses, across Bartlett. There he met up with the woman who would one day be his wife and then group of young adults stayed up well past the curfew, but instead of waiting out the night then returning home in the morning, they tried to return to their homes by taking the back roads. To no surprise, the tight net of police caught them, but luckily it was the Bartlett police, not the Memphis city police, so they were only given a stern warning then sent running home with their tails between their legs.
Eventually the riots died down and the curfew was lifted, but the assassination of King didn't bring people together at first, instead it only further polarized the whites and the blacks, where both sides were afraid of the other. Hugh didn't dwell too long of the events on that day, in his mind there was much more for him to focus on than the death of a man he knew little about. Today however, Hugh thinks back occasionally to Martin Luther King Jr.'s sacrifice and appreciates his peaceful ways, comparing those events to how people are reacting to Ferguson, Missouri. He's said it before to those who are speaking out heavily against the decision by the grand jury that they should be protesting peacefully, like the man they've said would hate the decision made by the jury, Martin Luther King Jr.