Tag: Memphis

The National Civil Rights Museum

The Lorraine Motel and Dr. King’s balcony

The museum is very well done, and it takes visitors through the civil rights struggle from after the Civil War to the present. Without going into too much detail, these are some of the exhibits that struck me (click on each photo to read the text):

I’m amazed at all the picayune ways white supremacists enforced segregation.
Challenges to segregation including the flyer that was distributed to boycott the buses in Montgomery after Rosa Parks was arrested; a pamphlet for helping African-Americans navigate Route US-40 and challenge segregation; and a very good question.
Documented human rights abuses.
Recreations of scenes from the March on Washington and the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ strike that brought Dr. King to the Lorraine Motel.

It’s inspirational. And also really depressing.

Next: Gulfport, Mississippi

Memphis

Memphis was our first real bout with winter weather. Didn’t we take the southern route to avoid this?1

Welcome to Beale Street!

In another instance of serendipity, we arrived in Memphis during the International Blues Challenge 2024. Bands from the U.S., Canada, and beyond were playing in the restaurants on Beale Street, so we got to enjoy some good BBQ and blues music. A few shots of the performers, which don’t at all capture the experience:

We also visited the Blues Hall of Fame, the Rock and Soul Museum, the Stax Museum, and Sun Studios.

Top row: Before he opened Sun Records (left), to distribute the recordings, Sam Phillips ran the Memphis Recording Service (center). Some of earliest artists to record with the Memphis Recording Service included B.B. King and Ike Turner, whose “Rocket 88” with Jackie Brenston is considered by some to be the first rock and roll record (right).
Bottom row: A replica of Memphis DJ Dewey Phillip’s studio (left). Dewey Phillips used to smash records he hated on the floor so that no one else would ever play them (see the vinyl shards in the lower right corner). He played the first copy of Elvis’ “That’s Alright Mama” (center) which elicited such a reaction he played it another 14 times during his show. Elvis recorded it, and other Sun artists recorded their songs, in the Sun Records recording studio which is still in use today (right).

For some reason, I took no photos inside the Stax Museum. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, when the rest of Memphis was segregated, Stax was one of the few places where black and white artists and staff could work together as equals; when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, while rioters destroyed much of the neighborhood, no one touched the Stax building because it was so esteemed by the community. In the aftermath of the assassination, however, divisions began to form along racial lines; and despite having a stellar group of artists and songwriters—including Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Booker T. & the MGs, Isaac Hayes, and others—a series of bad distribution deals ultimately led to Stax’s bankruptcy. Today, there is a music charter school attached to Stax, but the neighborhood looks to have not recovered from the riots.

Next: the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel

  1. On our first night here, a water pipe burst in one of the garage stairwells due to the cold. This triggered the fire alarm, and we all had to exit the building. We were allowed back in almost immediately, but the alarm kept going for another hour, until the hotel staff could override the alarm system.

    On our fifth day, another hotel water pipe burst, resulting in a water shutoff for the whole building. The South is going to have to learn about pipe insulation. ↩︎

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