The Meaning of Memphis

Sunday in the States always takes a slower pace. This is certainly true of Memphis. Having been tired out yesterday at Graceland we have stayed an extra day in Memphis to look at the Blues quarter and the National Civil Rights Museum.
We took a leisurely breakfast and drove into Memphis. We parked on the corner of Union Ave and Front Street and walked along Main Street, which is pedestrianised, apart from the trams, to Beale Street. Beale Street is the road which is jam packed with blues bars and music shops and tourist traps. We joined in the relaxed atmosphere as we looked in bars and music shops, listening to the blues music that drifted out from each one. Past B.B. Kings, on up to Silky O Sullivan’s. We stopped for a coffee and chicken sandwich on the patio of Silky O’Sullivan’s and listened to a blues duo playing. Blues is a great sound and the 12 bar is nice and easy to follow, it is especially good live. The air was quite warm as we sat in the shade of some large trees. Looking up we saw they had some real, live goats basking in the sun up a helter skelter type of ramp, rising up out of a grassed area at the side of the patio. A sign said ‘Beware. Irish High Diving Goats’!!!! (Only in America!!!!) It was a very pleasant time.
We then continued along Beale Street looking in more shops. We returned to the van via St Martin’s Street, passing the Peabody Hotel, and down Union Street, passing the Old Cotton Exchange. We noticed many examples of Art Nouveau and Art Deco ornamentation on the buildings. Strangely enough, most of the ornamentation appeared to be at the top of the tall buildings!
We then drove the short distance to the National Civil Rights Museum (NCLM) at 350 Mulberry Street. This museum is on the site of, and preserves, the Lorraine Motel. It also owns and has preserved the buildings opposite, which are of similar historical importance.

Lorraine Motel? What happened there? What could have happened in an insignificant Motel in the downtown area of Memphis? Specifically outside Room 306. On April 4th, on April 4th 1968 at 5.45 p.m.? This is the place and time that Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. As such, it is a shrine for the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. The Motel was bought by the NCLM and gutted on the inside to house the story of the civil rights movement in the USA, though leaving the exterior and some rooms as it was when the assassination took place. We toured the museum and went to the room where Dr Martin Luther King had stayed. We could see the exact place on the balcony where he was shot. We also went across the road to a lodging house where we could visit the room from which James Earl Ray used a rifle to assassinate Dr Martin Luther King (it is interesting to note that James Earl Ray was actually identified and arrested by the British Police when he tried to pass through Heathrow airport some 56 days after the assassination). It was a very moving experience. Difficult to put into words those feelings.

We are however starting to link together some of the important episodes in the Civil Rights Movement in America. We are saddened by the pain and suffering that had to be endured by so many to make such small gains in the road to equality between black and white people. We are also sad to be left with the feeling, as we travel round this proud and beautiful country, that for many integration is a concept that is accepted, but is not fully embraced, as a universal right.