Victor DeRose

retired, alumnus, class of 1952

DeRose was on vacation with his wife in April 1968. The couple stopped in Tennessee for a motel when they saw people in the lobby celebrating the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and yelling derogatory remarks.

"We're not staying here," DeRose said to his wife.

DeRose added, "I am very much against that. I supported (King's) work in the country."

David Carter

criminal justice professor

"I remember exactly. I was a senior in high school outside of Kansas City, Mo. We heard over the intercom of the high school that he had been shot. They turned on the TV and we watched the media coverage. There was a riot in Kansas City."

Maggie Hunt

teacher

Hunt was a sophomore in college when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

"It was such an emotional time," she said. "King was advocating a rational course to end discrimination. He was brave, he put his life on the line."

Hunt said when King was assassinated, she was frightened for African Americans.

"Race was a big deal at the time," Hunt said. "I had a strong feeling that if I were black in our culture I might riot."

Today, Hunt is a teacher at Montessori Children's House of Lansing, 2100 W. St. Joseph St. She said the children in the school drew pictures of themselves and colored them with crayons representing a variety of skin colors.

"There has been change in our culture now," she said. "Any change that is effective comes through grassroots and our children rather than politics."

Anita Skeen

English professor

On April 4, 1968, Skeen was a senior at Concord College in Athens, W.Va.

"That was the second assassination I had experienced," Skeen said. "When I was in ninth grade Kennedy was shot and when you're 13 or 14, you're very idealistic, and you hear about assassinations in history you don't believe they happen until you hear it. When you heard about it happening again with King, you believed it would happen once in your lifetime, but not twice."

But Skeen said she thinks it will take time for King's dream to be reached.

"I think it's slow in coming," she said. "I think progress has been made, but I don't think much of what I hoped for in the 60s has happened."

Jack Rachman

retired certified public accountant

Rachman and his wife had arrived in New York City on April 4, 1968.

"We had tickets to a Broadway show," he said. "When we left the hotel there were no people on the street."

Rachman and his wife had not watched television or listened to the radio that day and were unaware of the assassination.

The couple was eager to see the city as well as the show they had tickets to and were shocked to see how empty the city streets were, he said.

"When we got to the theater it was three-fourths empty," he said. "We had balcony tickets and moved down to the fourth row. That's how empty the theater was."

Lauren Harris

psychology professor

Harris was at MSU when King was shot. She said the best way to describe King was "charisma."

"I had come to Michigan State a couple years before then. King was a beacon of hope for many people in the south and north. He brought an old south preacher's passion to rouse people.

"I came home from work and flipped on the television and the first word I heard was there was a discussion with three commentators discussing what had happened. My sense was a sense of profound sadness."

Charles Hagler

librarian

Hagler was attending college in Washington, D.C. when he heard the news about King's death.

"I can remember at night, you could see the fires," he said. "I remember I was in a dorm room in a university. One of my fellow dormmate's told me."

After hearing the news, Hagler turned on his radio. A few days after the shooting, members of the community began rioting, which resulted in the university officials evacuating early for spring break.

Chris York

secretary

At the time of King's death, York was in junior high school and said she had not been very affected by the tragedy because she grew up in a small town.

"The JFK murder was more of a big deal," York said. "I was born and raised in a small town. The community I grew up in, I couldn't relate because I didn't know of the problems."

But York said when she was older she was more bothered about King's death than she had been before.

"I was shocked that anyone would murder anyone else because of the color of their skin," she said.