NASHVILLE — Clara Ester died on July 9, 2026, at the age of 78. Ester was 20 years old when she ran to Martin Luther King Jr.'s side after he was shot on April 4, 1968, and she was among the remaining witnesses to his assassination and its immediate aftermath in Memphis.

Ester grew up in Memphis and attended Centenary United Methodist Church, where James Lawson, a civil rights leader, served as pastor. Lawson was very involved in the sanitation workers' strike, and civil rights issues were frequently discussed from the pulpit of Ester's church. Reflecting on her early understanding of segregation, Ester recalled the coping mechanisms children used.

"We used to joke about colored water being Kool-Aid and the white water just being water, and so that satisfied us as children," Ester said. "But until you see the racism, until you see what has been withheld from you because of your color — is what started to really truly anger me."

Ester was a college student when King was shot, and she became deeply involved in the movement. "And I knew if there was a movement that could help change any of that, I had to be in it," she said. Her activism was consistent and visible.

"I got to the point that I didn't miss a mass meeting," Ester said. "I picketed every day that the picket lines were up."

On April 3, 1968, Ester heard Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his speech at Mason Temple the night before he was assassinated. "He had seen the mountaintop," Ester said. She was at the Lorraine Motel for dinner on April 4, 1968, and saw King chatting on the balcony with people below.

"He was speaking calmly and pleasantly to a crowd," Ester said. "And so he was happy at that moment." "It was evident on the balcony — how calm," she added.

Ester heard a shot ring out on April 4, 1968, and ran to King after he was shot. She saw King struggling for air and tried to loosen his belt. Ester asked someone to bring towels to try to staunch King's bleeding.

She stayed at the Lorraine Motel after King was taken away, and police questioned her at the scene. Describing the moments after the shooting, Ester remembered the physical toll: "But to lay there with his eyes open, looking toward heaven." "I said, 'No, I'm not OK. There's something wrong with this,'" Ester said of her immediate reaction. "And it was many months later that I guess at some point, I just broke down." Regarding King's final speech, Ester said, "He had seen the promised land, and he may not get there with us, but he promised that we as a people will see the promised land."

Ester left Memphis to work elsewhere in the summer of 1968 and left the city for good after she finished school. "It's just too much to... it hurt me that it happened, but it hurt me that it happened in my hometown, that that's the legacy for this city," Ester said.

She moved to Mobile, Alabama, where she worked as a neighborhood organizer at the Dumas Wesley Community Center, a Christian service program supporting children, seniors and people experiencing homelessness. Ester was later named executive director of the Dumas Wesley Community Center and served in that role until she retired in 2006.

In 1986, Ester was commissioned as a deaconess in the United Methodist Church, a type of lay minister. She held leadership roles in the church, including serving as the national vice president of United Methodist Women. Andrew Young is believed to be the last surviving eyewitness to the shooting of Martin Luther King Jr.

Ester's death reduces the number of living witnesses to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the events of April 4, 1968, in Memphis. Her account provides one of the few firsthand descriptions of the immediate aftermath of the shooting, including her actions to assist King and her observations of his final moments.

Beyond that moment, Ester's life reflects the trajectory of many civil rights activists from Memphis: early exposure to segregation through church leadership, active participation in protests and mass meetings during the sanitation workers' strike, and a decades-long commitment to community service and ministry after leaving her hometown. Her career at the Dumas Wesley Community Center and her role as a deaconess in the United Methodist Church demonstrate the continued civic and religious engagement that characterized her post-assassination life.