Mark: Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960’s?
Barbara: I was 16 years old and I lived in Whitehaven, and it was a very scary time because there was a lot of racial unrest and obviously when Martin Luther King was shot it was an extremely bad time. There were protesters and riots in the streets and I just remember particularly myself at 16 years old I don’t think I really realized the severity of the situation and like most 16 year olds I was pretty self-absorbed and I had just gotten my drivers licence and my mother would not let me take the car out to go driving because of everything going on in the city when Martin Luther King was shot. And of course I was really upset, but looking back now I can definitely understand why my parents wouldn’t let me go out at night during that time.
Mark: Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you? School? Work? How was it different from today?
Barbara: I went to Whitehaven High School and typically just went to school all day and after school did after school projects or went to football games on the weekends. There happened to be a bus that stopped right outside my door, the city bus, and it would stop there and my girlfriends and I would hop on the bus and go to downtown Memphis because that was the place to be on Saturdays. And we would go to the Blue Light Studio to have our pictures made. And we would go to hear music and we thought we were really cool when we did that. But the rest of the time it was me in school. I graduated in 1970.
Mark: What do you remember about the day King was assassinated? What was different than normal? How did you feel? What did you think? Where were you when you heard? How did you react? How did people around you react? How did things change throughout the night?
Barbara: I was at home when he was assassinated and I don’t really remember thinking too much about it, but I just remember thinking it was really bad. I just remeber thinking how sad it was that white and black people could not get along and I’m originally from Birmingham, Alabama and there had been church bombings there because of the racial riots there. So I was very much aware that it was a very terrible thing and I was very sad that it was happening. And I think if I had been an adult I would have been a lot more aware of what was happening.
Mark: Describe your night after King was shot. Where were you that night? What was the city like?
Barbara: There was still unrest in the city and I was most likely still at home because I don’t think that any of my friends or myself were allowed to go out at night. They were still trying to figure out what happened and the city had a curfew so nobody was allowed out at night.
Mark: What did you think of King before and after his death?
Barbara: I thought that King was a good man. I thought that he was a peacemaker. He came to Memphis to help the garbage strike and he was never about violence and was always
nonviolent which I respected a lot. And I obviously felt horrible for his family and afterwards when he was killed how awful that was for them when he stood for nonviolence and he was killed so violently.
Mark: Did life change at all after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think people’s attitudes changed?
Barbara: Not that much. I think that it’s taken years and years and decades for change to be made and even now I’m not sure that there’s been a lot of change with the things that have been going on now, like the Michael Brown case or example. I don’t really think there was much change immediately at all.
Mark: Is there anything else about that time in your life that we haven’t discussed that you’d like to add?
Barbara: Well looking back on it I think that it was a simpler time. And I think most people think that when they look back 30, 40 years in the past, but obviously to me it was a much simpler time and things weren’t as complicated. It wasn’t the age of instant news all over the place immediately like it is now. So in a way that’s good and in a way that’s bad. So the 60’s and the 70’s they were what they were. They were a different time and it was obviously a time for change and a time for people to try to make things change.