Clara Jean Ester was a college student at Memphis State College in Tennessee when she bore witness to a series of pivotal moments in civil rights history.
As a junior, Ester joined the Memphis Sanitation Strike in 1968, alongside African American sanitation workers who were calling to demand better working conditions and higher wages.
She was there at around that same time that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech. She was also there the next day when Dr. King was assassinated.
At StoryCorps in Mobile, Alabama, earlier this month, Ester, now 72, remembers the last days of Dr. King’s life.
On the night of April 3, Ester remembered packing into a crowded congregation at Bishop Charles Mason Temple in Memphis, where King delivered a sermon in support of the striking sanitation workers.

“Finally Dr. King arrives, and he said, ‘When I entered into the city of Memphis, I was told about all of these threats. But none of that matters anymore ’cause I’ve been to the mountaintop,’ ” Ester said, paraphrasing his famous speech. “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.’ ”