The Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis is one of the best museums I’ve ever been to. It’s heavy (this is the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968), but incredibly moving.
It is especially poignant to see what Black Americans went through in the 1860s through the 1960s to achieve some degree of equal rights in this country (hangings, beatings, jail time, assassinations, protests, bombings, harassment, and more) and achieve the racial breakthroughs of the 1960s.
It is equally depressing to walk through this museum knowing that virtually ALL of the voting rights fought for over one hundred years were wiped out by Trump’s Supreme Court justices just a few weeks ago, and Black voting representation in the South was eradicated immediately by racist and vile state governments, like here in Tennessee. Did you miss that in the news? The gerrymandering in the Tennessee state government was swift and immediate. There is no more Black representation in Tennessee. It’s shameful. And knowing that Dr. King died for it, fifty-seven years ago, makes it doubly so.
An excellent museum, though—see it before Trump and his evil minions shut it down. You think I’m kidding, don’t you. Just wait.
Down the street: the Arcade restaurant, Memphis’s oldest, just an incredible place. The Cramps were photographed here in 1980. Excellent food, and the prices aren’t bad! Breakfast was 13 bucks.
See more photos at Deke’s original Facebook post!
