Hi there, my name is Kenny S. and I am doing a summary of how life was when Martin Luther King was alive and how it has changed since he died. For this project, I asked my grandmother, Georgia C., to help me with this because she is 62 and was a teenager when he was alive. The things she told me was that Martin Luther King was an outstanding leader for African Americans. 

My grandmother was thirteen years old in the 8th grade when the assassination occurred. It was around 2:15 p.m. when the news got around that Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. My grandmother arrived home and her mother and grandmother were dying and yelling hat Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. People were continuously calling the house.

The person I'm interviewing is my grandmother, Jo Ann C. She is 60 years old. My grandmother was 13 years old in the 8th grade (Ironic right?) during the time of Martin Luther King Jr's assignation. She lived on Gather Parkway around the time of King's assignation. My grandmother stated "Before the time Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Memphis to march, she barely knew anything about him. The day before he got killed, when I got out of school, they released me out of school early because of the important march. When I got out of school, I was looking or my sister Debrorah (my aunt) and by brother Jess (my uncle). 

In this narrative I interviewed my grandmother. I was interviewing her according to when Martin Luther King Jr. was alive and the events that happened when he was assassinated. They was back on the year 1950 and so on.

My grandmother was only 16 years old or younger. She was born in 1954. My grandmother still has a car and lived in Memphis which is the same place I live today. It was back them when you had to be in the house before the street light came on.

When slavery was put to an end, it was claimed that freedom would be returned to all Americans. It turned out not to be the case. Why is that? The answer is simple, but we try to avoid it. Humans are selfish. That is the answer in and of itself. We want what is easiest, and what is easiest is what is already known to us. Whites in the late 1800's seemed to have forgotten about giving African Americans freedom, but in actuality, they were avoiding it. They didn't know anything about blacks, other than that they had been slaves. They didn't know anything but themselves and their desires. They knew what they and other whites wanted for America, but were afraid that things would change the moment African Americans were allowed to vote. 

It was an ordinary day for me in 1960. I went to school got home to my apartment 1031 C in Tupelo Apartments. I did my homework and helped my siblings  with their work, ate dinner of my moms world famous meatloaf, then the chores. Today we didn't have many chores, my siblings and I so we went outside to play. Suddenly there was chaos everywhere and all I could hear were the screams and cries of people in the neighborhood. A man ran through the front where all the kids played and began yelling that King was shot and killed. That's when my parents swept me and my siblings up and ran into the house. When we got inside our parents sat is down and told us how Martin Luther King Jr. had come to help out the sanitation workers and while standing was shot.

I was babysitting the night of April 4th, 1968. The day had started as any other day, but ended very tragically and differently. I had gone to school, came home, did my homework, and was off to babysit. I never knew that in the pull of a trigger that all of history would be changed forever. When I had found out, I was shocked and scared because I couldn't go home since I was watching the children. The city had put out a curfew, which I had to break since the parents didn't get home until 9:00 pm.