When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. died 50 years ago, hundreds of Bowie State University students learned the news from inside a jail.
They’d been arrested just hours before for taking over the Maryland State House and protesting their school’s run-down conditions.
Three of those former students are still friends today, and remember how Martin Luther King Jr. inspired their movement.
Alvin Pindell, Doris Gillard and Deborah McFarland helped stage the sit-in.
“What really stuck in our craw was the fact that we weren’t being treated fairly or equally," Pindell said.
Students found roaches in their food and they did not have heat in the winter or access to doctors, except for one day of the week.
Following in King's footsteps, the students at the historically black college organized a protest at the Maryland State House to demand better conditions.
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“This guy Dr. King - he was our shining knight," Pindell explained. "He was like the president of the black community.”
They fully expected to be arrested for protesting.
"We were not going to give up,” Gillard said.
It was in jail that they learned about King's assassination. Their leader was gone.
“I heard this cry that came from the belly,” Gillard said.
“I can remember just sliding down the wall, and sort of balling myself up in the fetal position. I put my head between my legs and I just started to weep,” Pindell said.
The three friends were released from jail that night and though they mourned for King, they continued their fight.
“Knowing that Martin Luther King had been assassinated, it gave us the courage, determination, to finish the job we had started,” Gillard.
