My next stop was Memphis, about 3 hours away. I got hitched up and headed out.
Memphis is known for many things.
Graceland
Beale Street
Barbecue
Blues
My main destination on this trip was to visit the Lorraine Motel.
People of a certain age will immediately know that this is where Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was staying on the day he was assassinated.
The day was appropriately gloomy for a visit to such a sad part of American history.
I passed the marker that is in front of his room.
And I entered the National Civil Rights Museum.
The museum has a wide range of exhibits that meet many learning styles. There are a lot of things to read, but there are also videos and recordings, as well as artifacts.
I was particularly interested in this display.
According to the text in the display, in arguing the Brown v Board of Education case, the NAACP legal team held that segregated schools negatively affected how black children saw themselves. To prove the point they called on black psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who had been studying the effects of segregation on black children since the late 1940s. Their research, based partly in what became known as the “doll test,” showed that segregated schools created “a sense of inferiority and self-hatred” in black children.
I’m not sure if these were the exact dolls they used or if they were replicas.
The Clarks used the dolls with children aged three to seven and asked them questions about the dolls. Most children preferred the white doll and described its attributes positively.
The Clarks also asked children to color in drawings using the same color as themselves. Many dark-complexioned children chose light colored crayons, such as yellow and white.
Just a sidebar: When I was a child just starting school and we were directed to draw ourselves, I always selected the yellow crayon out of the eight pack of Crayolas that we had to work with.
Apparently, the “correct” color for white kids in 1960 was orange.
A classmate made fun of me. “Are you a Jap?”
I guess we weren’t that far removed from World War II – and a good ways away from common decency.
Anyway, back to the museum.
This political cartoon was published in The Washington Post, February 22, 1977.
As the Brown verdict was increasingly enforced in classrooms across the country, some white parents resorted to a drastic measure to keep their children from attending integrated schools: they moved to the white suburbs. Segregation actually increased after 1954 as a result of “white flight.”
I do find it heartening that not all white families fled to the suburbs. This letter, written in 1955, documented the request of the parents of Alice Lorch that she be allowed to enroll in the neighborhood school that they describe as a “Negro school.”
The struggle continued, though. A little later in 1955, Rosa Parks refused to get up and let a white person have her seat.
In Montgomery, Alabama, the first ten seats were reserved for white passengers. Rosa Parks was seated behind the line, but bus driver, James Blake, believed that he had the discretion to move the line separating black and white passengers. The law was actually somewhat murky on that point, but when Mrs. Parks defied his order, he called the police. Officers Day and Mixon came and promptly arrested her.
The Montgomery bus boycott started the next day and went on until December 20, 1956.
That is 381 days of walking, walking, walking. Carrying groceries and whatever else you needed.
On the first day of the protest, MLK addressed a crowd of around 5,000. He said,
“There comes a time when people get tired…tired of being segregated and humiliated…If you will protest courageously and yet with dignity and Christian love…historians will have to pause and say ‘there lived a great people – a black people – while injected a new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.’ This is our challenged and our overwhelming responsibility.”
As I mentioned, this museum presented information in many different ways. Here you can see a young visitor watching a video about the topic.
There were artifacts, too. I was particularly interested in The Negro Travelers’ Green Book. The “green” in the title referred to the author, Victor Hugo Green, rather than the color of the book. There was a movie, set in 1962, called Green Book, in case you are interested. I would recommend it.
Side note: Green Book won the 2019 Oscar for Best Picture, Best Original Screen Play and Best Supporting Actor. I was surprised that Mahershala Ali, who played the pianist Don Shirley, was a supporting actor. I understand that the driver, played by Vigo Mortensen, was crucial to the story. He was nominated for his performance in the Best Actor category. His performance was excellent. I do not want to take anything away from him, but it certainly seemed to me that they were costars. I wonder when we will ever stop viewing history from the perspective of privilege.
Okay, back to the tour.
Interstate travel became a target for political action. In 1946, the US Supreme Court ruled that segregating passengers on busses and trains traveling between states was unconstitutional.
Southern officials refused to enforce the law. Incidentally, the JC in the headline refers to Jim Crow, the laws enacted in the Southern United States to enforce racial segregation.
The first Freedom Ride took place in 1947. They called it the Journey of Reconciliation. Eight black men and eight white men boarded buses in Washington DC, bound for Louisville, Kentucky. The bus ride was a test to see if the South would enforce the 1946 Morgan v. Virginia ruling that struck down state mandates that made it legal to segregate seating on trains and buses traveling state to state.
There was a total of 12 arrests during the rides. In North Carolina, Bayard Rustin, who helped organize the protest, was sentenced to the chain gang.
Southern states ignored the Court again in 1960 when it banned segregation in bus and train station waiting rooms, restaurants and bathrooms. Perhaps they thought they could just label waiting rooms as “Intrastate” rather than “Interstate” and that would take care of things.
The Freedom Rides of 1961 are the bus rides I remember hearing about.
The bus was firebombed in Anniston, Alabama on May 14, 1961.
The Freedom Riders escaped the bus as it burst into flames, only to be brutally beaten by members of the mob that had followed them.
Representative John Lewis was a member of the original group of 13 Freedom Riders.
Many things took place between the Freedom Rides and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963.
Four girls were killed in the blast and two young boys were killed in the aftermath. Johnny Robinson was shot in the back by a policeman.
Small artifacts are included. I can only imagine the grief and anger that Joan must have felt when she assembled this collection.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a eulogy for the young victims of the bombing.
The bombing in Birmingham took place less than a month after the August 28th March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
An estimated 250,000 people came to Washington to peacefully make known their demands for civil rights. Observers estimated that 75%-80% of the marchers were black.
According to information at the museum, the march vastly exceeded its organizers’ expectations in terms of participation and media attention and it remained peaceful. It prompted President Kennedy to strengthen safeguards against employment discrimination in his civil rights bill and it provided Dr. King with a platform to share his vision of a democratic society.
However, the march didn’t transform America. Unfortunately, the media focused on how many people marched rather than why they marched and Congress did not embrace President Kennedy’s civil rights bill until after he was assassinated.
The march was a remarkable moment that offered America a vision of a better society, but it was only a single day in the African American freedom struggle. Sadly, many Americans ignored, misunderstood or rejected the vision it offered.
I found this map of the electoral votes in 1960 and 1964 interesting. I must admit that I haven’t quite digested it, but I offer it up for your consideration, along with a link to an article about the MFDP.
A photo of the march from Selma to Montgomery was included in the exhibit. I had the sad honor of visiting the site of this event, as I have written about in an earlier post.
There were three marches in all. The first march began on Sunday, March 7, 1965. That resulted in what is known as “Bloody Sunday.” The second one was on Tuesday, March 9.
There was a movie made about this, too. Selma. It was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 2015, which it did not win. It did take home the Oscar for Best Song, Glory, by John Legend and Common.
LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress on March 15th.
If you would like to hear LBJ deliver this speech to Congress, click here. Incidentally, this address was given in 1965.
The third march began on Sunday, March 21. When Governor Wallace refused to protect the marchers, LBJ federalized the Alabama National Guard. Under federal command and accompanied by many FBI agents and federal marshals, they escorted the marchers from Selma to Montgomery.
There were conditions placed on the marchers about the numbers that would be permitted on the two-lane section of the U.S. Route 80. When the march reached the two-lane section, 300 continued and the rest turned back, slogging through the rain and the mud, averaging about 10 miles a day.
Once they reached the four-lane section of the highway again, the marchers who had turned back were ferried by bus and car to rejoin the march. When they arrived in Montgomery on March 24, and reached the state capitol on March 25, the crowd was 25,000 strong.
Dr. King gave his How Long Not Long speech on the steps of the capitol.
In 1968, Dr. King went to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ in their struggle for better working conditions and the right to unionize.
In 1968, Dr. King came to Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike.
Chicago’s Operation Breadbasket Orchestra came to Memphis to perform at a rally supporting the sanitation strikers.Delayed by bad weather, Ben Branch – Memphis native, orchestra leader and tenor saxophonist – arrived at the Lorraine Motel just before 6:00 PM on April 4.
Dr. King greeted Branch from the balcony. King called down to Branch and requested that Branch play his favorite song at the rally, Precious Lord Take My Hand.
King said, “I want you to play it real pretty.” Branch responded, “You know I will, Doc.”
Moments later, the assassin’s bullet struck King.
A single bullet fired from the boarding house across Mulberry Street struck Dr. King in the neck. He collapsed instantly and lay motionless.
Rev. Abernathy rushed to King’s side, whileRev. Kyles retrieved a bedspread from the room to lay over him.
Those who heard the shot pointed toward the boarding house. Police, who had been monitoring King during his stay in Memphis, ran from the fire station and scrambled to find the shooter.
They had a room set up the way Dr. King’s room was arranged.
We were allowed to stand and contemplate as long as we wished.
Then it was time to exit.
I paused on the balcony and looked out at the people that were coming in or pausing before they left.
One look back at the room.
Then it was time to visit more displays in the boarding house across the street. The shots were fired from here.
This is the view from the window. It was taken after the seventh, because there is a wreath at the scene.
Although the photo doesn’t show it very well, the display said that this photo was part of the evidence that shows the window partly open.
This is the view today.
This is the room James Earl Ray stayed in.
The bathroom he stood in to stalk Dr. King.
The window he shot from.
There was more too look at, but, as you can well imagine, I was pretty worn out from trying to remember my experiences from the time and attempting to assimilate new information.
I headed back to my car.
I saw this when I went in. At that time, there was a woman with these items. I wanted to ask her about her point of view, and what she hoped to accomplish. However, she wasn’t there when I was finished with my tour.
I guess I’ll have to save my questions for the next time. At the time I visited, Jacqueline Smith had been protesting for 30 years and 273 days.
Barring any ill fortune, I imagine she is still there.
Let me close this post with Dr. King’s last request.