On The Streets of Memphis

On my return to Oklahoma City from Nashville and Pennsylvania I decided to stop in Memphis. It was the week of the Martin Luther King birthday and also the day after the inauguration of Barack Obama, so there had been a lot of TV shows and news mentioning Dr. King and the civil rights movement. I stopped at the National Civil Rights Museum and spent a few hours touring it.

I also saw some other places so be sure to scroll down.

The exhibits of the museum tell the story of the struggle for African American civil rights from the arrival of the first Africans in the British colonies in 1619 to the assassination of King in 1968. There are many displays such as the bus Rosa Parks rode on, an actual counter from a drugstore sit-in, part of the bridge from the March to Selma and various other things.

The modern museum with the original motel to the right.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, was built around the former Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, Ralph Abernathy and others were staying in rooms 306 and 307. Room 306 is the one to the left in the picture. There has been a wreath on the railing continuously from that day on. The two cars parked in the front are like the ones they used and had parked there back in 1968. At the end of the museum tour you end up in what was room 307 which now has a viewing window to the inside of the next room with all the room service dishes and everything left as it was that day.

They were gettting ready to go out to dinner before going to another meeting.

Pointing to where the shots came from.

This is the rooming house across the street from where James Earl Ray fired the shoots. He had a room there which is furnished as it looked at the time. You can also see the bathroom where he shot from the window. It is the 3rd window from the left on the top floor (partially hidden by the trees in this picture.)

The door to the hallway that leads to this building has a gate on it with this quotation from the speech he gave the night before he was assassinated.

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. --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mountaintop speech April 3, 1968

And the rest of Memphis...

(not including Graceland...that will be a trip on its own)

This is the front of the FedEx Forum. Notice all the different types of balls lining the sidewalk. There is a soccer ball on the far left, and the usual basketball, baseball, tennis ball, volleyball, but what I was surprised to see was the bobbers! You know for fishing! Click on the picture to get a close up view of those balls. Use your back arrow key to return to this page.

This is one of the places on Beale Street. It is a block that is closed to cars and known for the blues. B.B. King's place is actually around the corner.

This is Main Street with its trolleys. They stop every few blocks and run frequently.



As I was leaving Memphis heading for the I-40 bridge to Arkansas and Oklahoma City I took this picture at Riverside and Beale Street. If you look closely you can see the riverboats, Mud Island and the mighty Mississippi. Mud Island was the scene of some action in the movie, The Firm, starring Tom Cruise.