Ms. Candice V. was a twenty year old college student in 1968. She commuted to the University of Memphis because she lived in Germantown. She had morning classes and was typically home around noon. She would leave to go to her first job on Union Avenue, which was from 5pm to 9pm. During this time, in Memphis, she remembers: the sanitation strike, the tanks and racism. She remembers that, but she also stated that it didn't really affect her a lot because most of the corruption was going on downtown and she was either at school or home. Her home life was good. Her parents were not racist because they had a black maid they loved, and her parents also didn't really talk about the issue. She said she was more affected by John F Kennedy's assassination, than Martin Luther King's.
On April 4, 1968, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, Ms. Candice didn't even hear about it until she got home. She says she was not really emotionally affected because she says she was to young to really understand the magnitude of the event. It hit her how bad his assassination must of been, after two different events. The first one was, the next day her father would not let her go to work. He would not let her go to work for the whole week and that resulted in her losing her job. The second event was, one day she was planning on walking to the grocery store, where a group of black men happened to frequently loiter. Her mother made her take her giant, black dog, Twiggy, with her to the store. At the time she was confused at why her parents where doing that, but looking back everything makes sense.
One of the biggest changes for her after his death was that the Memphis City Schools becoming integrated. She had been at the University of Memphis preparing to become a teacher and now she was trying to find a job teaching. All the people she had been preparing to teach with at U of M were now all to afraid to teach. However, she got a job as a substitute teacher in a mainly black school. She said she had a horrible experience because of all the racial tension. The change that happened over time was that Memphis became very racially tense and it still is today.
Before King's assassination, Ms. Candice admits to not thinking about him very much. Her parents worried about him because he was speaking out against the racial injustice. She believes if she had been older she would of thought about him more and understood the importance of King's effect of the Civil Rights Movement. After, "many years later", she believes Martin Luther King was so wonderful and brave. She compares him with Ghandi, because his resistance was peaceful. She vividly remembers the march on the bridge, how everyone was throwing things at him, but he and his followers kept walking and didn't use violence. She also mentions how brave the white people that supported with him and his movement were. Those people where going against there own race and maybe even family beliefs, and that really stood out to her.
A little thing Ms. Candice would like to add, her "claim to fame" ,was that she was dating a guy in college named, Richard. Richard worked for a news channel and did their videos. Richard also liked photography and he took the widely known, "I AM A MAN" picture, where the black men are holding up signs with that saying. Overall Ms. Candice believes that at the time she was too young to understand the degree of his assassination and the impact it would have. Now being retired and looking back, she understands how his death was had such a big effect on not only Memphis, but America.