Imogene J. was 40 years old on April 4, 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot in Memphis, Tennessee. At the time, she was working at the Memphis State library. She loved almost everything about her job. The one thing she did not like about working at the school library was that it was segregated. The act of segregation went against everything that her parents had taught her as a young child years prior.
Imogene grew up on a farm in Tipton County, TN where her father owned a decent amount of black slaves. She remembers growing up with the slaves' children, celebrating holidays with them, and eating dinner all together. She was taught that skin color meant nothing and all people were created equal.
She took these virtues, accompanied with her Methodist faith, and found herself living in Africa with a medical missions team for several years. Imogene would have lived her whole life working with the Africans that she felt so much compassion for if it were not for the violent murders that were taking place in the Congo. The American government forced those on the mission team to leave on the last plane out of the Congo.
She had been back in America for about six years when MLK was shot. She knew about the Civil Rights Movement, and she whole heartedly agreed with what MLK was trying to resurrect. "His peaceful mannerisms and actions drove the movement in the right direction", says Imogene. She was very sad when she heard that he had been shot.
A man came into the library with the news that he had been shot while speaking, and she immediately told her supervisor. She asked everyone to leave the library so that they could close up and go home; she recalls this being very peaceful and non-caotic. By the time the library was closed up, things in Memphis had settled down, and she does not recall seeing anything unusual on the way home. Imogene lived with her parents, and when she got home, they all listened to the radio together. Everyone wanted to be with their families that night, for it was a very anxious time. The unknown was scary.
Imogene remembers a policeman telling her to buy a gun for protection in the days following the shooting. She laughed at this idea, for she lived among the dangerous Africans for years and had never held a gun. She ended up going to get the gun with the policeman, but she never used it.
Imogene was most upset about MLK's death because "if he had lived, we wouldn't have the problems we have today." Imogene believes that if MLK had been able to live a full life and continue to practice his beliefs, racism would not be as violent as it is today.