Interviewee Name: Bryan D.
Age in 1968: 9
Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?
“Well nothing really stands out because you know when you a kid and I was like 8 or 9 when MLK got killed, nothing really stands out because you see everything from a kid’s point of view. You don’t really notice the difference in how people treat you because of your race because your contact with other people of other races was limited. So I can’t really say anything stood out except a lot of times it was real violent and stuff with the civil rights and all that kind of stuff.”
Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you in 1960? School? Work? How was it different from today?
“Getting up, going to school, coming home and playing was the normal for me. I had 9 brothers and sisters and we didn’t have a lot of money. We were very poor so I didn’t have a lot. I never even had a bike when I was little. I didn’t get new shoes. Most of my clothes were hand me downs from my older brothers. I stayed out of trouble. I’ve always been a good student. Now, I’m 55, I go to work and come home. I have a way to provide for my family. I can buy anything I need or want.”
What do your remember about the day king was assassinated? What was different than normal? How did you feel? What did you think? Where were you when you heard? How did you react? How did people around you react? How did things change throughout the night?
“Well let me start off by saying that of course everybody even at 8 or 9 was aware of what was going on here in Memphis at the time. And what was going on as far as the civil rights movement had been going on for a period of like 3 or 4 years straight. So of course I was aware of what was going on. At that time, the short period of time Dr. King came here for instance, the garbage man strike was going on and everybody knew about that. It basically dominated the news and people’s everyday life as that was going on. The week that Dr. King was killed he came into Memphis to participate in a march, but there was violence. People started acting a fool and there were riots and stuff during that march. We had a curfew, the police came out, and there were firebombing in the neighborhood and all that kind of stuff. There was a period of violence 2 or 3 days afterwards. Now he came back a week after that riot happened, and when he came back everything was still like what’s gone happen? Now I specifically remember I was standing on our front porch. I wasn’t doing anything just sitting lollygagging, it must have been after school. My cousin who lived across the street, came out of the house shouting “Dr. King got killed, Dr. King got killed.” That’s how I found out. And then too from what I remember after that, there were riots and fires again.”
What did you think of King before and after his death?
“Back then, at 9 or ten years old before Dr. King got killed there was a period of time when to us as 9 year olds he was this person who was supposed to be a leader. Me particularly I was on the other side, I’ve never really subscribed to nonviolence in the sense that he believed in nonviolence. That’s in responding to government injustice and political injustice through nonviolent marches. I never really particularly subscribed to that kind of stuff in the first place but I was one of the kids that Dr. King and all the civil rights movement was about. That was all for me because I was 9 years old and that was a big change that they were asking for. But basically I thought like everybody else that Dr. King was a good leader but what people lose in the translation is that he was a man just like any other man. His ideas were what was important not the man he was. He was a good enough man to be respected and admired for what he did. But his philosophical base I don’t believe in it. I’m a nonviolent person by nature and I don’t believe in violence is ever the correct response to anything but I wouldn’t have been nonviolent like they were.”
Did life change at all after his death? Did people act different or view problems differently? Do you think people’s attitudes changed?
“People’s attitudes did what they typically do. They changed for a short amount of time, but ultimately they didn’t go about the revolutionary and cataclysmic change that should have been brought on by his death and all the civil and political unrest that was going on at the time. People didn’t really change like they should have but of course life itself and our environment and our society changed a lot because government changed and our everyday lives changed in the sense that the rules of society and rules about how people did things were changed. But as far as my everyday life it didn’t have an affect because I really never thought or made much of a difference in people being black or white anyway. I mean I was aware being black male in the 60s, I was aware of what everybody said but I never put any thought into it. I never thought at any time I was any worse than anybody else just because I was black or couldn’t do something because I was black.”