Ella F. M. has lived in Memphis, TN her whole life. Back in 1968, Ella F. M. lived in Orange Mound, at 819 Sella, off of Park Avenue. She worked at Wilma’s Restaurant in the Southgate Shopping Center. Today her life is very different, as she explained, “I make more money now...I got a car now,” and she added, “back in the 60s was good times. Everybody enjoyed themselves, had a good time.”
On April 4, 1968, Ella F. M.’s day was a little different. She was at work when she heard about the assassination of Martin Luther King ,Jr. “Everybody was sad of how awful it was,” she explained. After work, she was trying to get home, but it was extremely difficult to commute anywhere. She was planning on taking the bus from downtown to Orange Mound, but the rioting prevented the busses from running. “And I felt like I was never gonna get home...and I thought I was gonna have to walk home from downtown to Orange Mound,” she said about the struggle about getting home.
The rioting was unbelievable. People were burning buildings and throwing bombs. Ella F. M. said, “I got on the bus, and I got to Park and Airways, and it looked like you could just see people burning buildings in the shopping center.” When she finally arrived at her street, she looked behind her and saw the building she had just past in flames. “People had thrown a bomb on it. They was mad about Martin Luther got killed,” she explained to why there was rioting. As she was walking down her street, to get to her house, she had a fear that someone might harm her. As she said, “I was so scared walking home, I thought someone was gonna throw a bomb on me, hit me with a stick or something.”
The night after King was assassinated, the city of Memphis was very quiet. People were forced to stay in their homes. They wanted to make sure the rioting would stop, so they gave everyone a curfew. The curfew was about 1011 p.m. However, the curfew didn’t apply to everyone. “And the people that had to go work like nurses, doctors, people that worked at night, they were the only people on the street,” she explained. The people with jobs that didn’t require them to work at night, had to stay off the streets and in their homes.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a great man. He did his best to try and make other peoples lives better. Not only that, but he wanted to do it in a nonviolent fashion. “Well, I thought he was a great man, and I, you know, doing what he represented to be right for the sanitation workers,” she said when asked what she thought about King before and after his death. “Very, strong man. People was really scared when he died, because they didn’t know what was gonna happen in this town. The whites and the blacks was really scared, everybody was scared,” she said. Clearly, we can see Martin Luther King Jr. made a huge impact on many peoples lives.
Unfortunately, to Ella F. M., it seemed life didn’t change, and people didn’t act or view problems differently. As when she was asked, “Did life change at all after his death? Did people act differently or view problems different?” she gave a quick answer of, “No. No.” Although people didn’t actively do anything different, Ella F. M. felt that many peoples attitudes did change. As when she was asked, “Do you think peoples attitudes changed?” she answered, “Yeah, yeah. A lot of peoples attitudes changed.”
Life was tough after the death of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, TN, but today, life is much better for everybody, and we do our best to treat everyone equally.