How old were you when Martin Luther King was assassinated? I would say I was in my 30s, late 30s probably
What do you remember about that day specifically? What were you doing? Where were you? Well my husband and I and another lady had a dress shop on Union Avenue and I think we had the radio and they interrupted in the radio, it was late afternoon if I remember correctly and they told us what happened, that Martin Luther King had been shot and they told everybody if they could to go home because they were afraid there was gonna be riots.
How did that event change your life that day or afterwards.
Well it didn’t exactly change my life but it was certainly a very important day in the life of everybody in the United States and I remember those times because in the 60s, the early 60s I remember I was going with my husband around Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee and this is where the freedom fighters were and everything, during the time that we were there, I never saw any of them but they were there. So this was earthshaking.
So it affect more the United States, you saw a difference in the way people acted afterwards and their behavior?
Definitely
What really changed?
I think a lot of people were very scared, especially the people in the South. I think the people in Mississippi particularly were afraid, and also mad.
Why MIssissippi specifically?
Well that’s where the freedom fighters went, thats one of the places for sure, and where the two boys were killed, it was in MIssissippi, and they had a lot of lynchings in Mississippi and they had the Klu Klux Klan and they were very active there also was another one they had outside Greenwood, MIssissippi, I know because another Jewish lady who lives there told me they had, and being Jewish they had to be very careful, what they said. But I’ll tell you one thing Memphis wasn’t half as bad, I don’t think they really rioted so much in Memphis [Oh really?] really, for some reason, I don’t know why, maybe everybody was just stunned at that point and I imagine the police were out. But the Lorraine Motel, I happen to the know the, a young man who I went to school with, his father owner that hotel [sic] and of course I passed that hotel many times going to school when I was younger, or going uptown, excuse me.
The movement that Martin Luther king was spreading, did it dies down at all after he died? How did it it change?
No, it didn’t die, it became the cry for the black people to get their, finally get their freedom, and be able to vote and be able to be a complete citizen and that’s when the start of it was, and the schools were integrated.
So you think that his assassination push this movement forward?
Oh definitely, and he believed in non violent, but it worked. He did it and he became a martyr, he became a martyr for the cause, and it really did help. Unfortunately a man had to die for it to happen, but it helped to push things, to get things done so that the black people would have the rights they deserved.
Do you have any other comments about the day or the time?
I had two young children at home and of course they didn’t know anything about it. We carried on our day to day lives for a long time, it didn’t affect our lives do much, its just that being Jewish we felt for the black people, we were down trodden somewhat in our day and I remember thing in my school, I was one of the two Jewish people in my grammar school so we hoping and praying that they would get what they deserved.