Interviewee Name: Lenda D.
Age in 1968: 13
Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?

In the 1960s I lived in Fayette County. The African Americans and whites just started going to school together. There was a lot of discrimination going on. We weren’t allowed into some stores and there were certain water fountains that we had to drink from. There was also a lot of name calling going on.

Describe your life in 1968. What was a typical day like for you in 1968? School? Work? How was it different from today?

Children did not have the opportunities that they have today. Children have the internet and other sources to help them become educated. Children in today’s society can have any education they want as long as they put forth the effort to achieve it.

Where did you live? What was it like? What stands out about living in Memphis in the 1960s?

At the time Brown lived in Memphis, but not in the city. She lived in the suburban part of town, where there wasn’t a lot going on. The only people who did manual labor were African American; it was rare to see a white man doing that kind of work. In was quite peaceful at the time because Brown didn’t really know what was going on at the time. She was so young that no one really told her anything was wrong. Brown said, “I didn’t know what was going on until around 1966, and even then it wasn’t all that clear.” 

During this time Anne S. was surrounded by racism because during this time white people and black people did not get along at all. Martin Luther King Jr. was a light in a dark tunnel throughout the point of racism in 1968. Anne lived on a farm and was in her senior year high school and the night that MLK was assassinated it changed racism forever. Many people liked what MLK was doing but others weren't so appreciative and one of those people killed him. Racism began to decrease after MLK was killed because he made such a difference that even when he was dead things began to change. 

For this project, I interviewed my grandmother, Stormy B. The following is a narrative explaining what she told me during this narrative. When Dr. King died she was 14 years old in the eighth grade. She lived in east Memphis with her mother, father, and brother.

I was thirteen when I heard about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I was in my home in Nesbit, Missississippi listening to the radio in the living room with my weeping mother and upset father. But I'm going to start from the beginning, my name is Larry B. and I was thirteen years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed at the Loraine Motel on April 4, 1968.

Shirley D. was fourteen years old and in the ninth grade. On a regular day she would wake up eat breakfast and go to school. When she got home she would do her homework and make sure her chores were done. Along with her nine other brothers and sisters they would enjoy each other's company and watch there tv shows in the after noon.

In 1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King got shot, my grandmother, Frankie W. was only 13 years old. She was living in Stovall, Mississippi on a farm at the time. She says it was a small country and not a lot of prejudice people or much racism at the time. A typical day for her in 1968 was waking up to go to school, come home, do homework, and eat and go to bed. She says it's much different from today because we have slot of resources and technology today that she didn't have back then. She was used to planting and growing her own food to eat, washed clothes clothes with pump water, picked Cotten, and raised animals. On the day Dr. King was assassinated, my grandmother remember being at home shocked and upset about hearing that he had  been shot. She was upset because she didn't want something like that to happen to such a great civil rights leader. 

Dickey W. was born in 1950 and has lived in Arlington, Tennessee his entire life. He was eighteen years old, a senior student in high school, in 1968. Life in 1968 was much different than life in 2014. Grocery stores were only located in the city, so Dickey had to drive into Memphis to buy his groceries. The cars during this time had no air conditioning or radio. Computers and cell phones had not been invented in this time period. Most babies, including Dickey, were born in a house rather than a hospital with a midwife as the doctor.

I interviewed Jim S., my grandfather. He lived in Jonesboro Arkansas about an hour outside Memphis when King was assassinated. He said nothing really changed for him when MLK was shot, but he did see a lot of racial tension grow more strongly through other people around him. When I asked him to describe his life in 1968 he said a typical day for him was go to school, eat out with friends, and go to work. Nothing changed majorly for him. 

My name is Sandra C. I live in Memphis, Tennessee in a small house on the outskirts of the city. Today is April 4, 1968 and I had awoken exceptionally early this morning so I can get to school on time. My school starts at 7 a.m so I must leave at about 6:30 a.m to get there on time. I am in my senior year at Capelville Highschool. The school is predominantly black so we aren't very exposed to any racial discrimination.