“My parents were teenagers in 1968. My father was a 14 years old Memphian and recounts to me April 4th as if it happened yesterday. He says the tension was palpable in the city. Not only the pain of losing a great leader filling the air, but, also the shame of being the city where his life ended. With the hurt still there behind his eyes, he said to me, “No one addresses how the pain of that lost directly impacted the cities self-worth.” Memphis is an ideal model to examine the impact of Dr. King’s platforms and measure the distance we’ve come from the start. Dr. King was in Memphis providing support and guidance for the Memphis Sanitation Worker’s strike. The strike aimed to rectify low pay, unfit working conditions and assert the rights of workers to unionize. King’s presence in Memphis illustrated his commitment to the civil and human rights of decent wages and working conditions. Memphis was a major stage for the labor fight. But, being the place where an event occurred that shook the nation began a narrative that painted Memphis in a negative light. Two weeks after King’s death, there was a resolution to the strike and recognition of the workers’ rights to unionize. The city made some progress in the wake of the tragedy, yet, it still battles with some of the inequalities King was fighting against.

I am a student of Memphis, my high school, undergraduate and now graduate school education are all a product of this city. My disposition and worldview are shaped by the happenings here. I’ve picked up a few dialectical attributes and have integrated them into my daily language, but most certainly the quality that I have gained from Memphis is an attitude of tenacity. Through Memphis, I have learned the will and desire to continually work to make my surroundings better and allow the people around me to benefit from my efforts. I realize that, in this way, the spirit of Dr. King lives in Memphis motivating young people like myself to move younger people toward action to better their communities. It donned on me that if my parents were teenagers at the time of the tragedy at Lorraine Motel, they were among the last generation to be born without all of their rights protected. I am the first generation of my family to benefit from the Civil Rights Act of ’68 and the Civil Rights Act of ’64, which deemed segregation illegal, granted equal access to public places, pushed desegregation of schools and protection for voting rights. I cannot ignore the privileges granted by the work of King and his contemporaries and it is my duty to ensure young people recognize their privileges as well and fight to maintain them.”