Life for Nadine S. in 1968 was simple yet busy. Everything was segregated, even up to the water fountains. Tension was everywhere because of the sanitation Workers who were on strike. Things were so different back then; there was no social media, internet, or cellphones. Things were a lot cheaper, too. The cost of the average house was only $1,500. The fact is that she only made $5,000 a year. According to Nadine, “It was a lot easier. Most of the things you could buy now, but they were so cheap! At least, a lot cheaper than today.” Working as an airport billing clerk and owning a dance studio kept Nadine very busy. She worked as a billing clerk at the Memphis International Airport from 7 :00 am. to 3:00 p.m. After that, she went to her dance studio, Nadine Vosse S.’s School of Dance, and worked until around 9:00 p.m. She says, “It was so different from today. There is not any racial divide in America anymore. All the segregation just disappeared: the Wa t e r fountains, schools, bars, nothing is separated anymore.” Typically, she worried about the war in Vietnam. Nadine’s brother, cousin, and fiancé were all fighting in that war, and she worried that they might not come back.
Tension was thick between everyone on that day in April that would eventually change everything. There was an uneasy feeling in everyone’s stomach during those days leading up to and after Dr. King’s assassination. Nadine stood in her studio a little after 6:00 p.m. teaching a class when parents ran in frantically. “I had no idea what was going on. Like I said, I was teaching, so I didn’t see the broadcast about his assassination,” she says. Hysterical parents came to get their kids and were rushing in and out of the studio. She had to wait until everyone was gone, but things changed quickly throughout the night. It was scary for her to watch everything that was happening outside.
Nadine had to stay in her studio because by the time everyone was gone the riots on the street made it too dangerous to leave. Riots were going on down the streets. People were throwing bricks through every store, moving up the street. One block away from Nadine’s studio, the brick-throwing riots finally stopped. She sat by in her studio as people ran up and down the streets, throwing bricks through the windows, as if all the crime was legal. According to Nadine, “The city was really scary, it was like The Purge all of the sudden.” The whole time, she was thinking that the events that were happening were not things Dr. King would have liked. “There was no peace as there once had been, even if what was going on before this event wasn’t peace, this was far worse.” she says.
Nadine always believed Dr. King had been a peaceful man. “If the truth be told, I never thought much about Dr. King before his death. I knew of him, of course, but other than his peace and thirst for equality, I never really gave a thought to him. I had so many other things going on in my life, it just never really came up. I had my two jobs, and I never had time for TV,” she says. After his death, she knew things were going to get scary. It was obvious that he had so many followers, and he was too peaceful. Her attitude never changed other than her worries about the fact he was peaceful. His peacefulness meant that he would not have liked the events that followed. She never gave him more of a thought, but she became safer. She was still to busy to think about it too much.
“My life never really changed much after Dr. King’s death, other than the curfews.” Nadine said. She remembers that you had to be in your house by 5:00 p.m. “If you weren’t in your house by 5:00 p.m., unless you were a medic or a police officer, you were arrested,” she recalls. Nadine remembers all the stores closing. “If you didn’t have food in the house before 5:00 p.m., you were not eating that night,” she says. Some people’s attitudes changed, but in all different ways. Some for good, some for bad. Whatever the reason for an attitude change, Martin Luther King Jr. ’s assassination was a very important part in our history. Without Dr. King we might not have ever ended racial segregation. The price freedom sometimes costs, as it did in Martin Luther King’s death.