I interviewed my grandmother who was 13 when Martin Luther King was assassinated. During the time she was living in Memphis and was attending Harding Academy. In the 1960's she said that Memphis was a great place to grow up. It was very safe and she could go out with her friends and stay out until very late. She also told me that there was not many private schools. The only private school around her was Harding and it only came about so that it was a Christian place for students to go. Most children went to schools in their neighborhoods. However she lived in an all white neighborhood and barely ever saw a black person. The day that Martin Luther King was assassinated she was at a drive in movie with her parents and a friend. She and her friend went inside to get some popcorn when they heard over the speakers that they needed to go home immediately because King had been assassinated. Her dad, my great grandfather, put them in the car laying on the floor board so that they could not get shot driving down the street. When they got home people in the neighborhood were running around and they heard gun shots all night and police were everywhere. After he died Memphis changed because everyone had to be home before dark and it was not as peaceful as it used to be.
My grandmother has always been such an amazing women. She said that she truly loved Martin Luther King and she also loved everything that he stood for. My grandmother said "I think he is one of the most amazing men that God has ever created. He was all about the peace and wanted to do what God had called him to do. He also did not want the black community to settle with what they had." She began to explain to me about how life was after King was shot. She began telling me how nights were different and students in public schools were being bussed to different schools so that their was not segregation. To me everything she was saying sound like it was a sad and scary time. Everything changed when he died. She told me about how different our world would be today if he had not been around. She explained to me how I probably would not be friends with some of the people I am friends with today because of their race. My grandmother ended the interview with something I will never forget, "he died all because one man thought that black people weren't worth anything". If you think about it people kill themselves over the idea of not being worth anything and the people that bully them are just like their murderers. Some of us are fighting the same battles today that the blacks were fighting not too long ago.