Where did you live? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?
It was clean, spacy, nice neighborhoods, people were friendly. Downtown was vibrant. She was born in Memphis and grew up in Memphis. Everything about Memphis was very comfortable and familiar for her. Having gone there for school, from first grade until Central High School, it was just the place she wanted to be.
Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you in 1968? School? Work? How was it different from today?
She had two small children, her husband traveled on the road and they had just recently moved into their home. Brother was much younger, sister away in college. Mother had passed away and father stayed at her home. She would take take care of children, go to grocery store, clean the house, and she would always have her brother and father over for Shabbat dinner. She also prepared things during the week for that occasion.
What do you remember about the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated? What was different than normal? How did you feel? What did you say? Where were you when you heard? How did you react? How did people around you react? How did things change throughout the night? Describe your night after King was shot. Where were you that night? What was the city like?
Everything was pretty normal going into the night, right up until the assassination. Her father owned a pawn store on Mclemore and Bellevue and at the time the neighborhood was an ok one, but wasn’t really super safe. When the Martin Luther King Assassination hit the store, they showed rioters burning down the stores around his shop. There was a huge walgreens shopping center across the street and they were burning it.
Her father owned a lot of property around town and he has always respected black people and they used to use his pawn shop as a bank of sorts. They would bring radios and jewellery to him, get money for those things until they got their next paycheck. He was friendly towards the black community in that area, and no one felt any animosity towards him and the community in that area was on good terms with him. However, Mrs. K. was still very fearful of her father’s safety because the riots were like Fergusen, just on a much larger scale because Martin Luther King was such a high profile gentleman that everyone respected so these riots were very bad. She was very fearful for her father and until he called her and told her that everything was alright, all kinds of bad and negative feelings were flying through her.
Amazingly enough, to this day, the store was never even touched during the riots. He sat in front of the store during the riots and no one ever came close. And this was an unbelievable thing that happened. It showed that even with all of the craziness, he respected them, but more importantly, they respected him enough to not attack him or his store. However, even with all of this, until she realized that he was ok, there wasn’t any rest in her home. The night was very scary and people were told not to leave their homes and her father was in Midtown and they couldn’t get in the car and go get him because they would get stopped and might get into trouble. The night never calmed down. It was very hectic and nerve wracking. It was very similar to what was going on in Ferguson, but much bigger because Memphis was a much larger area. People wouldn’t riot in East Memphis, but they were rioting downtown and in Midtown. Unfortunately, Memphis will always be remembered as the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated.
What did you think of King before and after his death?
She never thought that much about him prior to his untimely death. She knew that he was a peace loving man who tried to help people. Afterwards, she admired him for all that he had tried to do. She feels in her heart and with everything that she believes, that had he lived, race relations in the city and in the country would be much, much better than they are now.
Did life change at all after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think people’s attitudes changed?
Not really, almost not at all. Even to this point, everything is still going back to a black and white issue. People don’t really understand what he was trying to do and achieve. At the time people appreciated what he was doing, but after his death, so much havoc and distrust was created that people can’t get beyond the hatred and race relations and think that the only way to get anything is with violence. its very upsetting that race relations hasn’t advanced that much from 1968 to 2014.