Rick Lee of Lee’s Flower & Card Shop in Washington, D.C., spoke last week alongside Mayor Muriel Bowser and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
A local florist — and longtime Society of American Florists member — was a featured speaker at an event last week in Washington, D.C., that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Rick Lee of Lee’s Flower & Card Shop in Washington, D.C., spoke alongside Mayor Muriel Bowser and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. He detailed his memories of the turbulent time in American history; after King’s assassination in Memphis, six days of riots and protests erupted in Washington, D.C.
“They needed someone there who had lived through that time to share their perspective, and for me, as a business owner and civil rights worker, it was a privilege,” Lee said.
The shop created a wreath for the mayor to place on the memorial during last week’s ceremony.
Hours after King’s assassination, as violence broke out in the city, Lee, then 25, ran to the family business “to make sure that my mom was protected and the shop was protected,” Lee said, in a recent interview with AFP. “We stayed here all night. We had a shotgun. I don’t know what good that would’ve done, but anyway, we were ready for anything that might’ve happened, OK, and … fortunately, we didn’t have any problems.”
Today, Lee’s is one of only three remaining business along D.C.’s U Street corridor that existed during that time.
In the lead-up to the anniversary, Lee was interviewed by a number of media outlets, including The Washington Post, regarding his family’s experiences in 1968, and the shop’s growth and operations since that time, despite economic hardship in the U Street corridor in the years after the assassination.
Lee said he enjoyed the opportunity to speak at the memorial event.
“A lot of people there, even some of the dignitaries, weren’t born when Dr. King was assassinated, so I was able to share some of the history and stories with them,” he said.
