Day 45, August 1, 2016 Nashville TN to West Memphis AR

Waking up in Nashville we hit the road to drive to Memphis.  We had planned to go to Graceland, but the $40 price tag per person, plus $10 parking, dissuaded us.  We compromised by listening to some Elvis recordings on cd as we drove.  Sorry Graceland…you didn’t make the cut.

Instead to drove into the city to find lunch and go to another great site.  We hoped to find something local and we were in luck.  99¢ Soul Food Express restaurant was a block away from where we were going. We ordered fried chicken, greens, yams and corn bread. We could have had some catfish or some chitins or other organ meats, all of which we passed up. What we did eat was very Tasty!   And we were then full and ready for our afternoon. 

We had read that the National Civil Rights Museum at the Loraine Motel was a good one and planned about three hours there.  We should have been alerted to it being more impactful when we saw the banners hanging from the streetlight poles leading to the museum.  It turned out it was one of the finest museums we have been to, period.   Much of what we would soon see was not new to us, but the details and the manner of presentation made it one of the most powerful days of our trip.

This museum was built in the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.  It incorporated parts of the old motel joining it with a modern museum that incorporated artifacts, video, interpretation signs, and interactive opportunities.

To our surprise, the museum did not start with Martin Luther King, Jr.  It began with a look at the history of slavery, looking back thousands of years, and then as it played out in the US.  It provided graphic information about the dependence of the economy on slavery, including businesses and individuals in the North.  There was a powerful graphic translating the value of slave labor to the production of tobacco, cotton, and sugar.  It made the clear connection of growing wealth of the whole United States to the labor of slaves working at little cost to their owners.  The number of slaves grew from about 1,000,000 in 1800 to nearly 4,000,00 in 1860. We were stunned to learn that in the United States, the capital invested in slaves exceed that for banks, factories, and railroads, combined.

We had learned in Nova Scotia about the “Black Loyalists,” former slaves who earned their freedom by fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War.  They did not get the support they were promised.  We found that was true again for those who escaped slavery and enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War.  So many of them fought bravely but were often sent on suicidal missions because their lives were not as valued as the white soldiers.  Those that survived were not given the land they were promised.

During the reconstruction period after the Civil War was over, the former leadership of the white property owners of the South chafed at the restrictions imposed on them by the federal government.  When reconstruction was declared over in 1877, this group immediately moved to reassert its power.  A large majority of former slaves were without any property and were forced to work the land of others, often their former owners.  Known as share-croppers, they owed a big portion of any crops raised to the property owners. An 1875 Civil Rights law guaranteeing equal access to transportation and accommodations was stuck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.  In 1896 the Court ruled that “separate but equal” was constitutional.  Local and state laws were passed to enforce segregation.  Known as “Jim Crow” laws, they were enforced by the legal system and organized violence against the former slaves.  The most famous aspect of this violent approach was by the Klu Klux Klan.

The Klan was especially committed to keeping the former enslaved people from voting.  Uncounted lynchings took place to dissuade people from exercising the right as citizens to vote.  James Vardaman, the governor of Mississippi, in 1907, said “If necessary, every negro in the state will be lynched.  And it will be done to maintain white supremacy.”

The legal fights against this oppression continued, but with little success, until the landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 1954 that declared that separate cannot be equal.  We had learned more about this decision, Brown v Board of Education, when we had been in Topeka, KA earlier in our trip.  This decision led directly, but not quickly to changes being forced on communities in the South.  Our next stop will be Little Rock, Arkansas where, in 1957, the high school was forced to desegregate at the end of guns and bayonets of federal troops.  The famous artist Norman Rockwell memorialized the 1960 experience of then 6-year-old Ruby Bridges integrating an elementary school in Louisiana with the aid of US Marshalls.  The original of this painting is in this museum.

In 2012 we spent much of a day in Montgomery, Alabama.  There we had learned in more intimate details about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Freedom Riders.  Both of these events were well documented here in Memphis.  (Last summer, while at the Ford Museum in Greenfield, MI, we had been on the restored, actual bus where Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat.)  Here was a similar bus plus a reproduction of the burned out bus where Freedom Riders had been attacked by a white mob in 1961 in Montgomery.

This led us directly to the exhibit on the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  Martin Luther King, Jr. was not the featured speaker that day.  The museum had recordings of the others speakers and performers on that day.  But, it was King’s “I have a dream” speech that is remembered.  It is interesting to note that he was only 34 years old when he gave that speech.  We watched the video of the speech and found we could nearly repeat the speech in unison with him.  

We had learned more about the tension between John F. Kennedy and King when we had visited the JFK Presidential Library. King wanted Kennedy to be a more active leader for civil rights and Kennedy was more reluctant.  JFK’s assassination just a few months after the March created a mood in the country that was much more open to supporting civil rights.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was pushed by Lyndon Johnson and passed by the Congress.   The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was another huge step.

One of the aspects of visiting this museum that we very much appreciated was the mix of people who chose to be there.  We saw many families of different races with parents carefully interpreting to their children what was before them.  There were also many teens there, appearing to explore the museum on their own.  Older people were remembering first hand what they experienced at the time, younger people were interested and sometimes puzzled in trying to understand how some of these things could really have happened.  We experienced this as a very healthy sign for our country.

The museum presented a wide range of Black groups that arose during the 60s.  The major priorities for these groups was explored as well as where there was disagreements among them.  The evolution of groups was included that sometimes became reasons for groups to split.  The biggest was the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).  SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) eventually split into groups continuing to favor non-violence and those proposing more militancy.  The Black Panthers gained a strong following.  The Nation of Islam had been founded 30 years earlier but gained many converts during the 60s.

In the Spring of 1968, the Sanitation Workers of Memphis went on strike due to pay and working conditions.  The City of Memphis held fast to their position.  The strikers were determined to be recognized as men.  Martin Luther King was busy at the time planning the next March on Washington for that Summer.  But, he came to Memphis to support the strikers.  On a stormy night, he spoke to the strikers and their supporters.  With a background of rain and thunder, he delivered one of his most famous speeches that included these final lines: “I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”

It turns out he was quite prophetic. The next day, King worked in his motel room at the Lorraine Motel.  In the early evening he stepped out of his room onto the balcony of the motel and talked casually with his associates.  He was struck by an assassin’s bullet and died there on the balcony.  His associates tried to guide others to where the shooter had been located but their leader was gone.  Dick had clear memories of hearing the news of the assassination and the pain he felt.  In many communities across the country the pain turned to anger and riots spread in many cities.

The big crescendo of the exhibits, took us to the restored hotel rooms where King and his associated stayed.  We could look out on the very balcony where he was shot and died.  The mood was somber and very quiet as we all filed silently by.  He was 39 years old when he was killed.

The Poor Peoples’ March on Washington did take place that summer.  There were many interesting displays about the march.  These had a personal interest for Dick since he was there.  He rode on a bus from Cincinnati with others who were joining in the march.  He was on the Mall in Washington to hear the speeches and performances, to see the hundreds of thousands of people gathered to peacefully demand that the country honor its obligations to all citizens to give them a chance for achieving the American Dream.

Although many people stopped at this point, we took advantage of the second part of the museum across the street.  This section focused in part on the investigation of who killed King.  A part of this museum complex was the portion of the building that had been a rooming house.  They had saved the room where James Earl Ray had stayed and the bathroom window from which he shot Dr. King.  It was strange to look out the window across to the motel. There was a lot of information about the investigation and various conspiracy theories.  We felt like they gave a fair portrayal of all that.

Then there were also some very moving exhibits encouraging us all to continue to do the work of working for freedom.  By the time we finished our nearly 5 hours there, we were so wrung out.  Outside, it was also nearly 100 degrees, and as we walked to our car, we decided it was hotel time.  No Memphis blues and jazz for us this trip. But what an amazing experience we had!

We crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas to our hotel where we asked about where we could get some good barbeque.  We were sent to Rays….a tiny little hole in the wall place, with really good homemade ribs and fixin’s.  We ate well, and settled in to reflect on our day.