Junior Year—Spring Term

During the spring of 1968, second semester of my junior year, I felt like I was in two worlds. My campus life consisted of talking to friends on the way to classes, intramural sports, and partying on the weekends. Outside that world, things were tense.

America’s involvement in Southeast Asia was in the newspapers and in the TV news. Every American male who had reached his 18th birthday was required by law to register for Selective Service, known more commonly as the “draft.” If a young man was 18 or over and did not have some kind of “exemption,” he worried that he would receive a letter from his draft board requiring him to report for a medical exam. If he was determined to be healthy, he could quickly be drafted into the army, trained for some months, and shipped off to Vietnam. As a college student, I was temporarily exempt—but that exemption would end on graduation day.

In Memphis, beginning in February, Black sanitation workers went on strike to protest discrimination in pay and working conditions. My college told us to stay away from the protests and from the downtown area because of the possibility of violence. Some classmates went anyway; I was afraid to go.

On April 3rd, Dr. King delivered a speech at a mass meeting in support of another protest march in the city. He closed his speech saying, “I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The following day, as he stood on the balcony of Lorraine Hotel, Dr. King was assassinated by a white man.

(276 words)

A related story in this Note series is titled “April 4, 1968 Memphis Tennessee”