When Steve H. lived in Memphis in 1968, he was 20 years old and attending the University of Memphis. He had lived at several places in midtown and enjoyed the college atmosphere with many influences of music in the area. He was not a Christian at the time and was talking difficult classes at the University. Between semesters, he decided to work for an electronics company. At this point, there had been many controversies between the city workers and officers. For people paying attention, this was not a happy time, but the unaware people were not fazed by the injustice. Steve was living near the airport the day King was assassinated. His first day of work was Thursday, April the fourth. He was driving down Airways Boulevard at around eight in the morning, when he noticed a white Mustang with an Alabama license plate. He had known a friend with the same kind of car and Alabama tag, so he assumed it was her. When he pulled up to the Mustang, he realized that it was not his friend, but a man. Without thinking much more, Holt went about is day as usual. Around seven o'clock in the evening Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. It was several days later when Holt found that the car James Earl Ray was driving was the same car Holt had seen on his way to work. He recalls that the city did not respond immediately to the shooting, but throughout the night there was burning of buildings and riots through the streets. His employers had told Holt to go home because of the buildings around the area were on fire. By Saturday, The whole city looked like a war zone. The National Guard brought tanks and barbed wire to control the riots. Holt compared this to Vietnam.
Steve H. was from a family in which it was normal to value a colored person less, but Steve realized that this was not fair. By living in Memphis at the time of King's death, Steve came to meet the Lord and had a completely different view of African Americans. Steve saw some changes in the younger generations of Memphis, but not as much in the older generations. He does not believe that it was a coincidence he was in Memphis at the time of the assassination, or that he saw a white Mustang with an Alabama license plate. Steve believes that it was part of God's plan to open his eyes to come to Him.