Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?
I lived near the old Baron Hirsch, in what was then known as North Memphis. And, interestingly enough, there was maybe, probably two or three blocks away, was a creek, and on the other side of the creek was where the black community used to live.
Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you in 1968? School? Work? How was it different from today?
Well, first of all, I thought things were pretty calm and peaceful. You know, everyone kind of knew who they were and where they fit into the community. I will say, that this was all precipitated by, there was a group of garbage workers who were going on strike because they wanted more pay, and it was one thing for them to negotiate that. What was happening, though, was people from outside of the community were coming in, and it appeared to people my age, that they were coming in and stirring up the community and trying to make things worse than they were. Because in general [from my perspective] it seemed that everybody did get along with everybody, and integration didn’t start, you see I was in 11th grade[in 1968], and when I was in 6th grade, the first black student came to our school. And they were slowly but surely, integrating the schools. And they brought in bussing later. This was shortly after everything that happened with Dr. King. [The bussing was when] they would take people from one side of town and put them in another part of town, to try to get equality. But but that time I was already gone and in college. But [before the assassination of King] everybody seemed to get along, and whereas three or four years earlier, this was not the case. I would say our integration, by that time thirty or forty percent of the “white schools” were black. It was never a big deal; the big deal was made by the people who came from out of town. So in general, I never saw, personally, the kind of tension or strife between the races that came out of that [the assassination of King]. And my dad used to have a lot of people that worked for him , the majority of which were AfricanAmerican. And I grew up around those people, and I never was afraid or intimidated. When I was a teenager I actually worked with these people, and literally, my life was in their hands, and they watched after me, taught me how to do things, and there was never any of that uncomfortableness, none of the tension that you we even see today. Granted, there were a lot of inequities, I mean I can remember stores and places we went to that would have two different entrances one for white people and one for black people. But nobody made a big deal about it. Overtime, those things started to disappear. There was a time, at the Memphis Zoo that the only day African Americans could go was Wednesday. There was even a time, when I was a lot younger, that there were certain water fountains that black people could drink from or not drink from. Again, as a child, it seemed trivial to us. The whole business about African Americans having to ride in the back of the bus...we were kids, we wanted to sit in the back! We didn’t care what color anybody was, we thought it was more fun to be on the back! So there were a lot of inequities, but they were kind of taking care of themselves. All of these things accelerated [after King’s death] but things really did change dramatically.
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 don’t remember exactly where I was when I heard he was assassinated , but I remember that we only had three T.V. stations back then,but everything was all over the news, I mean it was gloom and doom, I mean everything was coming across the T.V.. While history has shown that the things going on in Memphis at the time that led to the assassination, it was other things besides that happened in other places. Before he came to Memphis people were involved in that [planning the assassination].But let me tell you, it was scary. The first thing that happened was they put a curfew on and we were not allowed to go out. I think it was that night, or maybe the next morning, they brought in the national guard. There were tanks, army vehicles, driving up and down the streets. You’d go outside, look at a usually busy street, and it was just dead. I mean the only cars you’d see were police or army cars or something like that. We were literally under martial law declared by the governor. It was frightening. A lot of things that were going on we didn’t find out about until after the curfew, when the restrictions on us were lifted. For example, my dad’s office was in an area where many African Americans lived. And this is three or four days later, he drove through those neighborhoods, and man, it was broken glass everywhere. I mean people just went crazy. They were tearing up their own homes. And you couldn’t drive down the street without driving over broken glass. It was really scary. My father and grandfather were building a very large apartment building and there were all these building trucks involved, all these workers, who work because we were under martial law. But my father was able to get the mayor and governor involved, and they gave them special permission to continue working, but under police watch. After they finished this project, the time finally came for the workers to go home. They were all AfricanAmerican, and afraid to go home. They had heard what was going on in their neighborhoods and they didn’t want to be shot or something happen to them. So my dad asked them, “Do ya’ll want to go home? If you do, we will take you.” My dad and grandfather filled their cars with as many workers as they could fit, they had to make several trips, but they drove them home to where all this stuff was going on. These guys were frightened to go home. But they took every one of them home and everybody got home safe and sound. But it was scary, here we are in our homes, and we’re watching all this stuff on T.V., and they’re saying we can’t go outside. You know, when I was kid my mom asked, “Did you finish your homework? Go outside and play, go hang out with your friends,” because that was the kind of neighborhood we had. It’s never been like that since then. I think we lost something. A sense of security, a sense of feeling safe. Think of those old T.V. shows with the ideal homes that it was it was like. It was never like that again. I feel like the principles that Dr. King was promoting were good. The bad was, that there were a lot of people doing things in King’s name that were things he would not promote. If you think about it the whole thing, if you step back a bit, was a labor dispute between the garbage collectors and the city of Memphis. They wanted more money or more benefits. They made this big thing about it, and blew it out of proportion. And things haven’t been the same since.
Describe your night after King was shot? Where were you that night? What was the city like?
We were at home. We weren’t allowed to go out. We were in our homes, under martial law, we could not go out. Everything we saw on the news was talking about how terrible things were and how people were trashing their neighborhoods and burning businesses and breaking the glass. And it wasn’t like African Americans were going into white communities, they were doing it in their neighborhoods. It was scary, we were afraid to go outside. We’d look outside and see empty streets aside from the law enforcement vehicles.
What did you think of King before and after his death?
Like I said before, the principles that he promoted were good. In many ways he saw himself as the modern day Gandhi. He[Gandhi] promoted nonviolence, peaceful protest, and human rights, stuff like that. I think in many ways Dr. King was doing the same thing. After his death, I think there were a lot of people who said and did things in Dr. King’s name that didn’t accurately represent Dr. King himself. That’s where all these people came to “stir the pot,” they would reference Dr. King, they would try to use that for their own purposes. They seemed to be more controversial and not the peaceful type of protest that Dr. King promoted.
Did life change at all after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think people’s attitudes changed?
Absolutely. There’s no question about it. Well first of all, it got very scary because it seemed like everything from that point on became a racial issue. Whether it was schools, jobs, or taxes...everything issue that was political or social in Memphis from that point on seemed to have a racial overtone to it. It wasn’t necessary, it didn’t need to be that way. I think overtime the AfricanAmerican community started to see it. And there was moderation. Even their community saw these political opportunists who tried to use these things to promote themselves, using the things that Dr. King fought for, and using it for themselves. You see a lot less of that now. Because I think the communities, while there are still divides, there is more of a blending. Now remember that I’m thinking as a teenager. I thought that if the grownups left everything to the kids, everything would’ve been fine. Because the kids all got along. I mean when I was a kid, right across the street from Baron Hirsch was Valentine School, and behind that was the playground. And we’d play baseball and football, and there were both white and AfricanAmerican kids playing. And all the kids were together. Kids were colorblind; we didn’t know the difference. It was a kid, it didn't matter. I always felt that if the adults would leave things to us, things would work out just fine.
Is there anything else about that time in your life that we haven’t discussed that you’d like to add?
I’ll say this, it [assasination of Dr. King] caused some changes here in Memphis that the city never fully recovered from. About two or three years after that, I was already in college, and that’s when they started forced bussing, taking white kids from one part of town and bussing them to black schools, and taking black kids and bussing them to white schools. Trying to force this racial equality in the schools. I don’t know that it worked. And I’ll share this story: We had a maid who worked full time in our house. She didn’t have a car and she had five children. I’ll never forget, I came home from school, I was a senior in HS at the time, and she was crying. I asked her, “What’s the matter?” She says, “ I don’t know what I’m going to do about my babies. She explained that that her kids were going to be bussed to another part of town, how was she going to get there if one of her kids got hurt or something? The point is, as much as the white community was against their kids being bussed to the other community, the reverse was also true. There was hurt and uncomfortableness on both sides. The only people promoting it were these so called leaders doing things supposedly in the name of Dr. King. So it really caused a lot of hurt, some things we’re still recovering from today. Things continue to get better though, and will continue to get better as long as people are willing to get along.