At the time, living in East Memphis in the l960’s was the calmest and most peaceful time, until 1968. Living in Memphis at the age of eighteen was not the easiest time of the decade. Years before, the streets were calm, safe, and you could ride your bike at night without getting kidnapped. People would go on walks during the day. Mrs. M.'s parents were really prejudice about the African American people. Her parents did not want those people to be around their daughter. She never went to school with them because of the segregation. There was no crime and barely any poverty. Young Mrs. M. lived on the corner of Hollywood and Chelsea. Everything was always very peaceful and very quiet. Mrs. M.’s life in 1968 was a normal as any other eighteen year old girl. She was a freshman at the University of Memphis. The University of Memphis was Where she met her husband. After six months of dating, Mr. M. had gotten drafted to fight in the Vietnam war.
At their college everyone was separated. When the bus came to take people from or to the college, the white people took up all the seats before the African American is on. If the African American wanted a seat on the bus, then they had to sit in the very back. Civil rights had been a huge influence during the l960’s. Since Mrs. M.’s parents were very prejudice, they would not let her take the bus to school, work, or anywhere else. She always went with her friends or she went to college by herself. Since her boyfriend went to the war in Vietnam, she had a lot of free time until one day, something big happened. In the mail she received a letter from her boyfriend proposing to her.
She of course said yes and she Wanted to know when he would be coming back home. He said that he would come back home in about a month. Before he got home everything started to change. On April 4,1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated at the Loraine Motel. When she heard about it she came straight back to her house on the corner of Hollywood and Chelsea, turned on the news, and she sat, shocked by the news. The news anchors were telling the people that everyone needed to go home, stay inside, and they needed to lock their doors. As she looked out her window she could hear the people rioting in the streets of Memphis. They were rioting all night long and Mrs. M. could not stop thinking about her future husband who was coming home in a couple of days. She got in her car and went to her parent’s house to go see if they were ok. She went to go talk about King’s assassination and the wedding to her parents. Her parents were more Worried about the assassination than the marriage of their daughter.
It had been a few nights since the King was assassinated. Her boyfriend was supposed to come home. He was supposed to get here at seven but all the soldiers had to fly standby, but he would still get home around eleven. After the King was shot there was a curfew that started at seven which meant no one could roam the streets after that time. Mrs. M. went to her parent’s house. She got in their car to ride and pick up her boyfriend from the airport. They could not go to the airport because of the curfew and they would have to wait until the morning to pick him up. At eleven, Mr. M. arrived in Memphis and he needed to take a taxi home but there was not any taxis because of the curfew. He talked to some policemen and told them who he was and he also told him that he needed to get home. The policemen were nice enough to drive him home that night because he was a soldier. Everyone was so happy to see him especially Mrs. M.. A couple of weeks later they got married and she graduated out of college and became a teacher.
Mrs. M. thought of Martin Luther King as a black man trying to cause more trouble before this happened. The reason she thought this is because of her parents. Since her parents were very judgmental of the African Americans they thought that good things should not happen to them. They thought that people like them should not have the same rights as the people who were white skinned. After Martin Luther King was assassinated Mrs. M. thought of him as nice and that he should be treated like everybody else. She thought that he should not be treated unkind because of his skin, he should be treated because of his actions. She realized this after she her last year of college where she had to go to school with the African Americans. She saw how these people liked and did the same things as she did. Once she did she realize it she had so many friends who were not the same race as her. Now she is not as prejudice as she was before.
After Martin Luther King's death, everyone was sneaking to each other’s houses because of the curfew the police set. The police put snipers on the corner of every street to make sure that no one broke the curfew. People started getting African Americans to Work for them. Mrs. M. was interviewed for a job at a public school in Memphis. The reason she did not get the job was because she was not an African American. Instead of working there she found a job at St. Agnes Academy teaching art to high schoolers. Also, after his death more African American’s were getting treated better than the Caucasian people. After this tragedy, there was more crime than ever and there always will be. Since then, Memphis has went high on the crime and poverty rankings, putting the city at number two. Today, the city of Memphis’ crime is very bad and is number three on the rankings. Back before the l960’s the crime and poverty rate was very low.
Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination was not the only thing that happened in the l960’s. Later in June of that same year, Robert Kennedy was shot who also believed in the rights that Marin Luther King believed. Some other great accomplishments in the l960’s there was the first man to walk on the moon. The man who walked on the moon was Neil Armstrong with the help of his friend Buzz Aldrin. Today, the Vietnam war has gotten really bad. People have made up riots with signs protesting about the soldiers going into the war and also protesting how they should not even be in this war in the first place. The investigators who investigated the assassination of Martin Luther King found out the guy who shot him was not even from Memphis, instead he was from Illinois. He shot Martin Luther King out of the bathroom window from the building across the street. They even made a museum about him at the Loraine Motel in downtown Memphis, TN. The museum shows everything about the segregation and the civil rights war. You can still go into the room that he was killed outside of where he was shot.