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 gave his final speech. She was also there the next day when Dr. King was assassinated.
At StoryCorps in Mobile, Ala., earlier this month, Ester, now 72, remembers the last days of Dr. King's life.