On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed (assassinated,
murdered) as he and a group of his advisers were walking along the balcony at
the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
The motel
is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum.
It is a serious, thoughtful,
thought-provoking chronological record of the fight for African American personal
rights and civil rights starting from the slave trade in Africa until today.
The museum effectively uses video,
photographs, and oral history to tell the story.
There are a few artifacts, like the burned
out Freedom Riders bus. (I wonder who during that tumultuous, difficult time
had the foresight to save it.)
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| The balcony. Note the track of the bullet indicated by tiles on the ground |
At the appropriate spot in the story, you are brought to the
rooms where Dr. King and his advisers stayed.
The Lorraine Motel was where many Black visitors to segregated Memphis
stayed. The owner of the motel preserved
the rooms as a bit of a shrine. You
can look out a window and see the track of the bullet, now displayed as tiles
on the ground from the boarding house window to the motel balcony. The Museum does not allow photography inside,
especially to respect the memory of Dr. King in the motel room. So, sadly, we have few photos to share with
you.
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| Looking towards the boarding house from which the shots were fired |
Outside the motel are video kiosks that focus on Dr. Kings
assassination and why he was in Memphis to support the striking garbage
workers. The second part of the museum
is located across the street in buildings that include the boarding house from
where the shots were fired that killed Dr. King. They have recreated from FBI photographs the boarding
house bedroom where James Earl Ray stayed and the bathroom from which he
fired. This part of the museum focuses
on the investigation to hunt the assassin, with artifacts and an interesting
chronology of events leading up to the assassination as well as during the
investigation. There is also a section
relating the different investigation into theories of conspiracies to commit
the act.
The museum is intense and powerful. We were told to expect to stay 1.5
hours. We left feeling completely drained
after 2.5 hours. We had experienced
about half of the content and were just unable to digest any more. We canceled our remaining plans for the day,
and went back to the motor home to think.
This is a museum that every person should visit. Considering
the current divisive politics happening in our country today, it is useful to
look back at what brought us to where we are.
And to consider where we do not wish to return.
Where We Stayed...
Memphis is at the corner of Tennessee
touching Mississippi to the South and Arkansas to the West across the Mississippi
River. We stayed in West Memphis,
Arkansas at a campground on the flood plain between the levee and the River. It had beautiful views. Here are some pretty pictures.
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| Sunrise over the pond in front of our motor home. |
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| We love Mississippi tugs and barges |
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| This view of the River is from the Memphis shoreline. |
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| This is how we roll - well actually - This is how we look when we aren't rolling... |
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