Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?
I was living on Hawthorne, right off of Vollintine. Memphis seemed to be a lot safer of a town in those days than it is now. People weren’t scared of walking around or driving around in certain areas. Two blocks from where I lived was actually a black neighborhood. Our side was an upgraded area and they were right nearby, and we we never really fearful of anything. Nowadays, I would not even want to go there in the daytime, but we used to drive around there. In fact, I remember one Saturday night, on Vollintine, I was going to a girlfriend and a car came from the side of the street and hit my car. But really, we weren’t fearful, like people would be now. Of course, we weren’t connected with downtown, where all the riots were, but it was a nice time to live in Memphis.
Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you in 1968? School? Work? How was it different from today?
Well I’m retired now. At that time, I don’t remember everything so well because I wasn't so involved in the community because of the business I was in. I was very involved in it. Seven days a week, I worked pretty hard. We had a business that required a lot of attention. It was rough being involved in the community. I was involved in the academy (Memphis Hebrew Academy) a little bit I was on the board but my main focus of that time was business.
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?
Well I remember hearing about it. I know there had been a lot of problems with the garbage collectors trying to get some better wages. They had King come in a sort of be their leader. We were thankful we didn’t have our business down in that area, because I know they were breakingin and looting those stores, kind of like Ferguson now. I thought there was a lot of unnecessary violence that didn’t really accomplish anything. We were sort of like bystanders, we weren’t really involved in it. We didn’t join in on the protests or anything like that. I think all that we saw was on television. We just took a back seat; we weren’t too involved in it.
Describe your night after King was shot? Where were you that night? What was the city like?
Nothing really stands out in my mind that would ring a bell on that particular night. It had been going on for several days, and even before he was shot, there was still a lot of protests. We weren’t really apprised and didn’t know what was happening too much other than what we saw in the media. I don’t really remember that exact time.
What did you think of King before and after his death?
I thought he was a good speaker. I’d say we were sympathetic with the workers. We thought they deserved better treatment and better wages and we thought King was doing a good job in helping them accomplish this, but it didn’t seem to do really much at the time. It seemed that from this, Memphis got a lot of publicity. I really don’t remember. I remember the detective work, when they were trying to piece together where and how it happened. There was always the question about the fellow who did it. A lot of unanswered things going on there. I guess they got the right thing. People were always wondering if it in was in collaboration with somebody else or if he was on his own. They were all talking about stuff like that.
Did life change at all after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think people’s attitudes changed?
I think we became more aware of what was happening and the problems that existed among the different races. As far as we were concerned, nothing changed too much.