The Real King of Memphis

Yesterday was a day of both somber reflection, and of basking in the absurd. Both in Memphis.

First, we visited The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel. On April 4, 1968, while in Memphis to lend solidarity to striking sanitation workers, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Hotel by James Earl Ray. Ray fired the shot from the bathroom window of a boarding house across the street from the hotel.

The original sign and motel, outside the museum

The Lorraine Motel and the boarding house across the street have been preserved and converted into a deeply moving memorial to Dr. King, and to the Civil Rights movement as a whole.

A perpetual memorial wreath, outside room 306, where Dr. King was killed

The boarding house. The smaller window is partially open as it was when James Earl Ray fired the bullet that killed King

On April 3, King, in speaking to the striking workers, said "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And He's allowed me to see the Promised Land. 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."  Prophetic words.

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On an entirely different note, we are staying in the Graceland RV Campground, directly behind the Heartbreak Hotel, which is actually "down at the end of Lonely Street". Our trailer is at the corner of Hound Dog Way and Teddy Bear Lane. The lobby of the hotel is replete with leopard-print lounge chaises, red velvet sofas, gaudy light fixtures... and populated by middle-aged couples visiting from Iowa. (My apology to any Iowan's who happen to be reading this.)

I (Stacy) am a little young to appreciate the heyday of Elvis, but it has always been easy to see him as a sort of mindless, pretty-boy pop idol. In reading about him during this stay in Memphis, he comes across as a good man, very charitable, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men who, in the end, didn't do much to help Elvis deal with all the pressures of his superstardom.

We are staying an extra day in Memphis, because of 30 MPH winds and thunder storm warnings. Driving to Arkansas today just doesn't seem advisable. Tomorrow though we're off to Hot Springs!

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it aint' going away"  Elvis Presley

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."     Martin Luther King Jr.