Dr. King, The Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum

Thirty-eight years ago history was forever changed by an assassins bullet(s) in Memphis Tennessee. Two weeks ago I stood in front of the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, and wept. There it was the balcony where a strong leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., was taken down in his prime. I knew the National Civil Rights Museum was located in Memphis but I wasn’t expecting to see it upon my arrival.

It was evening and the old motel signs were on as well as the balcony lights. I was overcome with emotion. Seldom can you stand in a single spot where history was changed. I had several of those moments on my trip. The next day I found myself in front of Little Rock’s Central High School where nine African-American students were denied access in 1957 simply based on their race. Two days later I was walking the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial with my family. My niece’s husband is a survivor of the bombing, he was in the Journal Record building across the street from the blast. His name is on the wall of survivors which is organized by building.

But back to Memphis.

I arrived on Tuesday afternoon two weeks ago. I’d been through Memphis on the way to Atlanta a few years ago but I never stopped to see anything. This time I went out of my way to check out the city and, in particular, its streetcars. That evening, looking for a good dinner spot, I spotted the Lorraine signs while on the streetcar loop. The old hotel was a block away, down a slight hill. It was as I made my way toward the hotel from the streetcar stop that I started getting emotional. How different would our cities and lives be had Dr. King’s life not been taken?

The next day I ventured back to the area south of downtown Memphis where the National Civil Rights Museum is located, attached to the former Lorraine Motel. My schedule didn’t allow for time to see the museum but I wanted some daytime pictures. Besides, the $12 admission fee seemed a bit steep especially considering I’m usually not a fan of static museum displays. Then I saw something totally unexpected.

An anti-museum banner at a table on the edge of the grounds. Yes, a protest calling for people to boycott the National Civil Rights Museum.



From Jacqueline Smith’s Fulfill the Dream website:

The National Civil Rights Museum exists to educate the public about the history of the Civil Rights Movement and to promote Civil Rights issues in a proactive and non-violent manner.

Sadly, it fails to live up to these ideals. The truth is that the museum has become a Disney-style tourist attraction, which seems preoccupied with gaining financial success, rather than focussing on the real issues. Many people have criticized the “tone” with which information is portrayed – Do we really want our children to gaze upon exhibits from the Ku Klux Klan, do we need our children to experience mock verbal abuse as they enter a replica bus depicting the Montgomery bus boycott. Do we have so little imagination, that we need to spend thousands of taxpayers dollars recreating a fake Birmingham jail, to understand that Dr. King was incarcerated?

All in all, the greatest criticism of the Museum is that it dwells heavily on negativity and violence. Surely the underlying signals must portray hope and non-violence.

I highly recommend reading through her site, which will take some time. It is seldom that I find myself not really knowing how I feel about an issue but this is one. I think a civil rights museum is fitting but her charges of excessive spending and inappropriate displays makes sense to me. She raises other questions and points to sites saying that James Earl Ray did not kill king. The rooming house where Ray was staying is now part of the museum complex and you can see the upstairs bathroom where he supposedly pulled the trigger. However, trees and vegetation between the rooming house and the hotel balcony would have blocked the view, some say. These trees were cut down the day after the assassination. Talk about tampering with a crime scene.

Another banner read, “Gentrification is an abuse of civil liberties.” The area includes a streetcar line and as a result the area is getting renewed interest, just blocks away many new condos are being constructed. So we have the poor vs. rich (or richer) debate as well. This leads into the thought process on how do we revitalize an area with gentrifying it to the point that all existing residents are forced out. Even “affordable” housing is often beyond the reach of many of the working poor.

Thirty-eight years ago today a man that might have helped guide us to answers with these questions was slain. People feared change. I’m not convinced we’ve grown much in 38 years.

– Steve