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StoryCorps: An Eyewitness Account Of MLK's Final Days Clara Jean Ester was a college student in 1968 when she saw Martin Luther King Jr. give his final speech. A day later, Ester was at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., when he was assassinated.
StoryCorps

StoryCorps

Sharing And Preserving The Stories Of Our Lives

< 'I May Not Get There With You': An Eyewitness Account Of MLK's Final Days

'I May Not Get There With You': An Eyewitness Account Of MLK's Final Days

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(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Ahead of Martin Luther King Day weekend, we hear from Clara Jean Ester. Clara was a 19-year-old college junior when she joined the sanitation strike in Memphis. She was there when Dr. King gave his final speech in 1968. She was also at the Lorraine Motel the next day, the day Dr. King was assassinated. At StoryCorps in Mobile, Ala., she recalls the last days of Dr. King's life.

CLARA JEAN ESTER: The church was packed. And finally, Dr. King arrives. And he said, when I entered into the city of Memphis, I was told about all these threats. But none of that matters anymore because I've been to the mountaintop. And he proceeds in saying, if I don't get there with you, I want you to know that we as a people will get to the promised land. I remember that night was a tornado watch and in the background of that speech, you can hear the thunder and the lightning crash. And it was a powerful moment because he did his own eulogy.

The next day, we pull up to the hotel, get out of the car and walking across the parking lot, I'm looking up as Dr. King leaning on the balcony, chatting with everybody down below. All of a sudden, what sounded like a truck backfiring goes off and I can hear people saying, get down, get down, but I'm looking still at Dr. King being thrown back and I take off and I run up the steps. And when I get up to where he's laying, I notice this pool of blood around his head. His eyes were open and he still had a smile on his face. Kneeling over his body, all I could hear was I may not get there with you, I may not get there with you from the night before.

And when the word came that Dr. King was dead, hate kind of took over, hate that white America don't want to see us with freedom, so you take out our leader, our king. I think every time I want to believe that Dr. King's life changed everything, I've witnessed George Floyd's and so many others that have lost their lives. But you think that that's going to destroy his dream? Y'all are wrong. I think children in years and years to come will continue to have this dream.

(SOUNDBITE OF OCEAN WISDOM'S "PERSPECTIVES")

MARTIN: Seventy-two-year-old Clara Jean Ester, who went on to become a deaconess and community organizer - her story will be archived with the rest of the StoryCorps collection at the Library of Congress.

(SOUNDBITE OF OCEAN WISDOM'S "PERSPECTIVES")

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