Growing up poor during the 1960s did not make life easy for Helen H. Helen remembers vividly how difficult it was for her family to earn enough money to support them. Racial divides among blacks and Whites also made life, during her childhood, challenging. Going to school on Mondays after Dr. King was shot was not a priority for her. Every Monday after Dr. King was shot was called Black Monday. The black kids would not go to school.The ones who did go on that day got in fights. Not only would they get in fights with white people but with black people, too. Due to this unfair treatment the black people would break into stores and sometimes set them on fire.
Imagine having to watch over younger siblings all day and wash the dishes. Those were some of the problems Helen faced on a regular basis while her mother was working. A sweet white lady was very helpful to the Hall family. They were not able to fully support themselves due to their shortfall of money, and this sweet white lady, whom Helen’s mother worked for would send the Hall family food. When Helen was not working around her house, she was at school. Not eating breakfast was another problem Helen faced. Most days she went to school hungry. “ I was so hungry I couldn’t even think about learning,” says Helen. The only way she ate breakfast was at school in the morning. She and the students would get free milk and cookies during their break. “Life is so much different today than it was back then,” said Helen. “Most kids do not go to school hungry today and families have food,” said Helen.
The day Dr. King was shot, Helen saw the news on TV, and she started crying only because everyone else was. She was too young to understand What was happening. “The air was tense and everybody was crying,” said Helen. It was common to see people fighting on the streets and to see people mad, with hate in their eyes. “The city wasn’t as safe as it was before,” she said. Downtown especially was very dangerous. It was not peaceful anymore. It was the complete opposite. There was no longer peace in Memphis. Helen was clueless about who Dr. King was and what he did before his death. She learned about him in school after his death. She learned that he was fighting for the black people by doing all the peace marches. Everybody practically went crazy that night. People were kicking through the doors of the stores and setting them on fire. The fighting still carried on. “It was worse than the Kroger incident,” said Helen. “People were acting very crazy and wild; it was hectic! “It was hard to sleep that night. It was much more safe at night before he was shot because you could leave the door unlocked and no one would come in.” The night Dr. King was shot, Helen’s family had to lock their door just to make sure black people would not come in and fight her and her family. It was mostly black people fighting black people.
The time when people started talking about Dr. King was after his death. This is also when Helen started to learn about Dr. King. Dr. King fought for the rights of many people, including the garbage men that pick up the trash everyday. Dr. King had a dream. He dreamed that each and every one of us would live happy and get along. Although we have not fulfilled his dream, we still strive to make it come true. “Today is worse than it was back then; it is the same, but in a different way,” she says. There are many bad thing that are happening around the world. “Someone is dying from violence in Memphis every day,” she said. This is the complete opposite of what Dr. King wanted. People’s eventually attitudes changed for the better. This is a moment that will never be forgotten by Helen. Dr. Kings death event changed her life and life for the other African Americans. Not only is this an important event in her life but also an important event in history. We are all equal in the eyes of God. We should all start acting like we are. We have come a long way since then. Now we have a black president running our country.