The day Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed I was only eight years old, but I remember vividly everything that happened. I was just entering my house after taking a short trip to get ice cream from the Merry-Go-Bill: a big round truck that sold ice cream. When I was inside, the TV was on, but I did not pay much attention to it because I was enjoying my ice cream. Suddenly I saw my mother fall on the floor screaming frantically, "THEY KILLED HIM, THEY KILLED HIM, OH LORD THEY KILLED HIM!" I did not understand what was happening so I asked her, "Who died? Who did they kill?" At that moment she told me that Dr. Martin Luther King was shot and killed. Then, my aunt Ruth called my mother on the phone and they both wept on the phone. As a child I did not understand why he was killed, but I did know that he was a civil rights activist, a preacher, and a big deal in my community. The way that my mother spoke about and wept for Dr. King I honestly thought he was a family member.
The next day I remember the destruction that hit the city. There were building that were burnt and some were even still on fire. There were two stores in my neighborhood that were burnt down. Armored tanks and men with guns that I had never saw before and army helmets were patrolling the streets. My mother and I went to the store that is were I saw one of the buildings that was still on fire. A teenager approached us and gave me a brand new doll that came from the burning store. My mother took the doll from my hands and gave it back to the adolescent saying, " She can't have it. It's not hers. It came out of that burning store." Memphis was always a good city children were always outside playing, there was not a lot of crime, and for my predominantly black neighborhood of North Memphis it seemed like a nice neighborhood with really amazing churches. Although everything seemed well before the assassination, I can say that, " Memphis went down in fire that night."