Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?
“In the years living up to the assassination I lived in Memphis then four years before I went to college in Boston. But every summer I came down to spend time with my family. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that it was harder for the Blacks to get jobs in the 60s and the selection of jobs was a lot smaller.”
Describe a typical day in 1968. What was life like?
“Well when I came back from law school in the summer of 68 I worked at a law firm and I was interested in how the Black community got along with the law officials. (it’s funny how the incident in Ferguson is going on right now). So I called up my friend Buddy Dwyer, who called the head of the police department and got me the privilege to ride with the police lieutenants every weekday night. One night we got a call about a burglar who burgled a house and then ran into a nightclub at two in the morning to hide. So the car I was in and four other cars pulled up to the nightclub and then two officers went in and a couple minutes later they came out with a black man in handcuffs. Later they went back to the club and apologized for the inconvenience. This showed me how the Black community interacts with the police. The police were polite and not racist. I think that the police were trained to not be racist in these cases so that nothing bad would happen.”
What do you remember about the day king was assassinated? How did you feel?
“Well the day it happened I was in law school in Boston. And when I found out I remember we all talked about King and how important he was to the Civil Rights movement.
Describe the night after King was shot?
“If you didn’t know already there are lots of colleges in Boston and every college attended a memorial service for King. That night I was scared for my parents who lived in Memphis and owned a store in the heart of the black community. I was scared for I did not know how the Black community would treat them for they were white.”
What did you think about King before and after his death?
“I think of his “I Have a Dream” speech, and how that speech described the jewish experience in this country. You could substitute Jewish for color of ones skin and the speech fits exactly. Which is why in Selma, Alabama, at the Pettus Bridge there were Jews arm and arm in with the Blacks. That’s why the funding of all the freedom rides was done by Harry Belafonte's Jewish friend in New York. Their picture used to be in the Civil Rights Museum, but it is not there anymore.”
Did life change after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think peoples attitude changed?
“Yes, attitudes did change. People who were not fearful both black and white became fearful. Blacks and Whites who had close relationships before became ever closer, but new relationships were harder to form because people tended to erect defensive barriers physiologically and the media did not help at all, because the media kept describing things literally black and white terms, and the Jews of course were caught in the middle. Jews were the downtown department store owners, they were the merchants who served the lower income community in Memphis black and white, but they tended to be more segregated."