The year was 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis TN to stand with sanitation workers who were fighting for higher pay. Lily H. remembers this time very well. Mrs. H., a native Memphian, was born on March 23, 1935. She was living in Memphis, in the Douglass Community, at the time of King Jr.’s assassination. She was 33 years old. Memphis was a much divided and racially charged city. Whites and blacks were separated in almost everything. In the prime of segregation, Mrs. H. remembers the racially divided fairs, circuses, restaurants, and almost anything else you could think of. She thinks back nostalgically about how she used to go to the store and get drink for ten cents and a burger for twenty cents. Mrs. H. was the definition hard worker. Working as a nurse's assistant at Baptist Memorial Hospital, she earned $107.50 every month, no matter how many days were in the month or how many hours she worked in a month. Mrs. H. would walk everywhere she went. One place she walked to frequently was the Dixie Mart store on Cleveland Street. Dixie Marts was a local neighborhood store that always had people in it. On one seemingly regular afternoon, she was shopping in Dixie Mart when an employee ran to the front of the store and from the television section and shouted that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot. The announcement was broadcast on television from a news station in New York. She immediately collapsed on a counter. Confusion, not panic, overwhelmed everyone in the store. People began leaving the store immediately, regardless if they were still shopping or not. That night, a strict 6:00 p.m. curfew was put into place which was enforced by the street lights being cut off at six. Mrs. H. vividly remembers the National Guard, along with the police, roaming the neighborhoods to enforce curfew. The curfew impacted factory workers in her community. Anyone who worked a 3 pm – 11 pm or 11 pm – 7am shift was scared to leave the house to report to work for fear of being caught. You had to be inside your home. You were not allowed to be on your porch. If you were caught out past six and were apprehended, you got violently beaten. Mrs. H. recalls attempting to use the phone to communicate with others about the travesty, but she soon realized that the phone lines were shut off by the city. Needless to say, the city was in an uproar. Mrs. H. still remembers the details of Dr. King's death, but surprisingly, she doesn't have much of an opinion on Dr. King. When Dr. King was alive, she didn't know much about him except for what she was told. She, along with her family, listened to his famous "Mountaintop" speech on live radio. She remembers that the ordinary citizen wasn't allowed to see it live because it was an event for pastors and the dignitaries in Memphis. She recalls that people tried profit off of Dr. King's death. Many people began selling commemorative Martin Luther King, Jr. items. She admits that up to that point, Dr. King never had a major direct impact on her life, so she didn't have much of an opinion of him back when he was alive. And now, looking back on her life, she realized that life changed for her after his death. One significant way it changed was they were inspired and protested for higher pay and received it plus a yearly $100 bonus on their birthday. Her advice for Memphians is to learn and continue to discuss the history of the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis and the world and never forget.