Civil Rights Museum - Part 1

I'm a museum person.  Maybe even a museum geek.  With the proper content curation I can get lost in a gallery or museum for an entire day.  Sometimes two.  But I digress.

The next time you undertake a road trip to Tennessee or find yourself in Memphis be sure to pay a call at the National Civil Rights Museum.  Convenient to the city center historic and entertainment district you can easily walk to it.  It's large and content-rich so allow about a half-day.  On your walk back to your hotel be sure to catch some live music, BBQ and adult beverages.

The site includes the Lorraine Motel - where Martin Luther King was assassinated and two adjacent buildings that are associated with his death.

The oldest part of the complex of buildings was originally the sixteen room Windsor Motel constructed around 1925.  In 1945 Walter Bailey purchased it and named it after his wife Loree and the song Sweet Lorraine.  Bailey operated the hotel for black travelers during the segregation era.  Published from 1936 thru 1967 the Negro Motorist Green Book was the go-to resource for African-American travelers.  The Lorraine was a popular destination.

With time, the Baileys expanded the business adding a second floor, a swimming pool and drive-up access for additional rooms.  Eventually substituting motel for hotel in the name. 

Speaking of the 1960s, as upscale lodging catering to a black clientele, visitors included names such as Otis Redding, Ray Charles, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Louis Armstrong, Wilson Pickett, the Staple Singers and many more.  Close proximity to Beale Street and Stax Records made this a destination spot for black performing artists visiting Memphis.

History records its most famous guest as Martin Luther King.

King had lodged at The Lorraine multiple times when in Memphis.  In the spring of 1968 he had returned with other civil rights activists to support striking sanitation workers.  On April 4 he stepped out of room 306 to speak with associates in the parking lot below.  As King began to return to his room he was struck by a single bullet and killed.  When she heard the gunshot Loree Bailey suffered a stroke later dying on April 9th, the same day as King's funeral.

 

With the passage of time the neighborhood deteriorated and the Lorraine Motel became a destination for the prostitution trade.  

Walter Bailey declared bankruptcy in 1982 and while under ordinary circumstances the real estate would have been sold at auction a non-profit acquired it with the intent to turn it into a museum.

Following multiple fits and starts, negotiations, renegotiations and governance disputes the museum stands at 450 Mulberry Street.  The museum complex is situated in downtown Memphis and is associated with the South Main Arts District.  The site includes the Lorraine Motel and the buildings across the way on 422 Main Street.  On Main Street is the rooming house from which James Earl Ray stalked and shot King.     

All the properties, with the exception of the motel, are owned by the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation.  The State of Tennessee owns the motel.

The museum houses a vast collection of interactive media, exhibits, oral and written histories and artifacts.  Visitors follow a self-guided experience through five centuries of history spanning the slave trade, racial segregation under Jim Crow, the civil rights movement to modern time.  In 2016 it became a Smithsonian Affiliate. 

George Bailey died in 1988.  The neighborhood is revitalized and to a degree gentrified.  Nowadays, the Lorraine welcomes more guests than ever before.