Dickey W. by Emma F., Harding Academy

Back in 1968, 18-year-old Dickey W. thought nothing of the segregated school system. His everyday routine included going to school at Bolton High School, which at the time only had about 140 kids,29 in his class, only three of which were black, then going and hauling two loads of soybeans to the mill. In his time there was no hiding anything you did. According to him if you did something you weren't supposed to your parents knew about it by the time you got home. There was only one teacher for each subject. The Wiseman family was against segregation, unlike most of the people in the United States. On the day of the King assassination, it was just a normal day for Dickey W. After school he still hauled two loads of soybeans to the mill. The only thing that was different was the fact that you couldn't go into the city and the only thing on television was about what had occurred that day. For about a week, people stayed home from work in order to circumvent the massive numbers of police and the checks. He described that there was a feeling of friction between whites and blacks for a long time afterwards. Dickey W. thought of Martin Luther King Jr. as a racist, riot starter, troublemaker before his assassination, but later he realized he was just ahead of his time. Before King's assassination, the white people had an attitude of entitlement, almost as if they deserved something more than the blacks because if it wasn't for them they would still be in Africa. After King was assassinated the national guard was called in to do crowd control. No one was allowed in or out of memphis unless they had good reason. It continued on like this for several days. Back then 18-year-old Dickey W. didn't have a care in the world, and after this incident not much changed. He still hauled soybeans. The schools were still segregated for a while, the tension between the blacks and the whites did increase yes, but it was always high.