My Pilgrimage to the National Civil Rights Museum: The Lorraine Motel – Memphis, Tennessee

A personal narrative about looking into the blind spots. 

by Don Allen, M. A. Ed./MAT

 

    ​I consider myself somewhat of a league civil rights activist in the early 90’s. I felt that my upcoming visit to the Lorraine Motel, now the National Civil Rights Museum, would be my pilgrimage to what I considered my Mecca.” 

    ​1992 had been a good year. I had had stories published in two Minneapolis newspapers as well as other work published in Denver, where I used to live. I was always very critical of the way the mainstream media presented the civil rights struggle and the plight of Black Americans in the United States.  At the same time, I was critical of the Black community itself.  While it was not a popular view, I believed firmly that a significant number of the problems faced by those in the black community were exacerbated by privileged members of the Black middle class more concerned with personal enrichment than with carrying out the work of Dr. King.  

Every year, the Church of God in Christ, a historically African-American denomination, holds its Annual Convention in Memphis, Tennessee.  Delegates from over 90 churches attend the five-day conference, which will includes day sessions and evening worship services. One of the most important tasks of the delegates is to discuss the state of the church, and the welfare of black people.  In my impression, the COGIC church believes that, “The Black American is still being written a blank check marked insufficient funds,” to quote Dr. King from his 1963 “I Have a Dream,” speech.  And I agree with this point of view today. 

     ​In 1992, I was one of the thousands of young adults who went from Minneapolis to Memphis, but not to sit around in the church and listen to elders complain about every dime they lost earlier in the year, my mission was clear – it was to trace the steps of Dr. Martin Luther King in his final days at the Lorraine Motel, which is now the National Civil Rights Museum on Mulberry Avenue in downtown Memphis. 

          ​My day started like any other day when I was out of town. I woke up at 4:30 a.m. – went outside the hotel, smoked a cigarette, drank some coffee, and went back to have a hearty breakfast. Today was going to be a great day; it was my personal best to further my understanding on what Dr. Martin Luther King went through during his social movement for civil rights. 

        ​Before moving further on my personal experiencevisiting the National Civil Rights Museum, which originally was the Windsor-Lorraine Motel, there is a vast history that must be told. 

        ​ In the days of legal segregation, the Windsor-Lorraine was one of the few hotels in Memphis open to Black guests. The Windsor Hotel, at the corner of Mulberry Street and Huling Avenue near downtown Memphis, opened in the 1920s. Walter and Loree Bailey purchased the Windsor in 1942 and re-named it the Lorraine Hotel. Its location, walking distance from Beale Street, the main street of Memphis' Black community, made it attractive to visiting celebrities. When Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, or Nat “King” Cole, came to town, they stayed at the Lorraine. Lorraine became an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement. It is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum (Sanders 2006).

        ​The story of the opening of the Lorraine Motel and how is became the National Civil Rights Museum goes like this: “In 1991, the Lorraine Motel—infamous site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination—reopened to the public under a refurbished name and identity: the National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM). The National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM) in Memphis, Tennessee, preserves what is arguably the most sacred site in the history of the American civil rights movement: the balcony of the former Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot to death allegedly by James Earl Ray. Although the movement continued after King’s assassination, April 4, 1968, marked a day of infamy for African Americans, the city of Memphis, and American history in general. Soon after the tragedy, people from around the world made pilgrimages to the balcony to honor the man who sacrificed his life on behalf of African American civil rights. “It seems the connection to King at the place of his death provided a sense of closure and comfort that could not be attained elsewhere”(Armada, B. J. 2012, p. 897). 

        ​In the Lorraine Motel heyday, it was the place local “upper crust” Blacks mingles and socialized within the Black culture in a relaxed atmosphere, free from the struggles just outside the doors. 

        ​My journey to the Lorraine Motel started with a cab ride from the Marriott Hotel out on highway 240, heading east into downtown Memphis. On the way I told the cab driver this trip to the museum was my salute to MLK and the civil rights movement. The cab driver called himself Fasil. He was an immigrant from Ghana, Africa who made it to the United States wanting to live the American Dream twelve years ago. Fasil wasn’t happy driving a cab – but in his words, “It pays the bills.” As we moved closer to downtown Memphis, I asked Fasil about the museum. He was use to tourist wanting more information about the museum. Fasil knew the museums history in detail. The knowledgeable cabbie spouted off a few facts that are on most tourist information guides back in the hotel where I was staying.

        ​Fasil said, “Originally the museum was named the Windsor Hotel in 1925. It was renamed Marquette Hotel in 1945 and offered up for sale and purchased by Mr. Walter Bailey in 1945 and renamed the Lorraine, after his wife Loree and a song titled “Sweet Lorraine.” At the time of purchase the Lorraine included a café and living quarters for the owners. The Baileys added a two-story concrete block motel structure to the east of the hotel in 1955.”  Needless to say, I was impressed with Fasil’s detailed knowledge of the history of the motel. 

        ​As we made the turn onto northbound highway 240(highway 240 is like highway 494 in Minnesota – the highway circles the fringe suburbs and city), I looked to the west and saw the “Mighty Mississippi” river, which is the dividing point between Tennessee and Arkansas. 

        ​We exited the highway on Union Avenue and headed down Union to 2nd Avenue toward Mulberry Street, to the sight of my pilgrimage to civil rights. Driving pass Beale Street and seeing BB King’s bar, my excitement grew. There were people everywhere on Beale Street, shopping, drinking beer and looking like a good time was waiting in downtown Memphis. 

        ​The cab made a sharp right after a couple of blocks and pulled over. Fasil turned to me in the back seat and said, “Welcome to the Lorraine Motel.” I replied, “Are we there?” Fasil looked at me with a question mark on his face. I returned the look. 

        ​This wasn’t the like the area we just passed at Beale Street. Where are all the people? This neighborhood is rundown, I see several, what I allege to be gangbangers in white t-shirts loitering up and down the street and what looks like a mattress with someone sleeping on it right across from the motel. 

        ​This can’t be the place of the Lorraine Motel, the infamous site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, reopened to the public as the National Civil Rights Museum. I didn’t want to get out of the cab; my second thought is why I didn’t bring anyone else with me. This is looking more like a dangerous Black neighborhood than a celebrated historical site saluting civil rights and memory of Dr. King. 

        ​The cab dropped me off about 100-feet from the lobby door. In navigating to the front doors, I had to pass a group of Black youth, that I figured were up to no good, a couple of women who looked to me like they would do anything for $20 bucks, and an older Black man, who looked to be in his late 60’s tipping his hat to most of the White tourists heading to the front door of the museum and asking for a “little help” because he was down on his luck. 

Damn…my expectations certainly clashed with reality on this one. 

    ​One thing I’ve learned in my lifetime is to not make eye contact with possible trouble – oops, to late. One of the Black youth in the white t-shirts approached me and asked, “Are you the police?” “No,” I replied.  The junior gangster asked again, “Are you sure you’re not the police?” I looked trouble right in the eye and said, “No, I’m not affiliated with any law enforcement agencies.” It was not my duty to tell this snot nosed asshole where I was from, and that I was more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs - why was I on his turfanyway? Wait a minute; this should not be his turf.

I became angrier about the situation with each passing minute.  The kid finally let me pass while shouting out,  “I got that dro,” slang for sticky-bud or hydroponically grown marijuana. To make matters worse, I am not at the front dooryet, and there are two hookers and a 60-year old man still in line for the “sidewalk greeting”…Oh shit! 

My anxiety was at an all-time high. Here come the hookers. “You aren’t from ‘hur’ are you? You very handsome, you not undercover?” 

    ​What the hell! I told the hookers I was undercover and they should move along because I was meeting my partner in the lobby of the museum and he wasn’t forgiving as I was. This was the quickest idea I could come up with to get rid of the two women – and it worked. Now my final sidewalk greeting before making it to the front door of the Lorraine Motel was the old man. 

    ​He wasn’t threatening at all like the junior gangsters in the white t-shirts. He greeted me with a “Hello Sir, can I be of some assistance in telling you the history of the Lorraine Motel as I remember it back in the day?”  

    ​I looked around from where I was standing to check my safety – I’ve heard of these kinds of setups, when an old man gives you some information and you reach in your pocket to get a tip out and a band of thugs rush you for your wallet. That was not going to happen to me today. 

        ​The old man, “Daddy K,” was 82 years old, born in 1920 on a plantation right outside of Clarksdale, Mississippi. He was the oldest of 9 brothers and sisters. He had some children, but had no idea where they were. He’d been on the street for most of his life after he losing his job shortly after Dr. King came to Memphis to draw attention to the plight of the striking sanitation workers.   “After Dr. King came,” Daddy K said, “that was the end for a lot of us.” He knew more about the Lorraine Motel, now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum than was written in any hotel tourist pamphlet. I suggested to him to let me pay his way into the museum and he would be my private guide and we could get something to eat afterwards. Daddy K took me up on my offer, saying, “I’ve been in there hundreds of times. I even used to stay at the hotel when it was open.” We headed into a lobby filled with photos of the 1960’s civil rights icons- Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Abernathy, Julian Bond and the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. - forever immortalized at the place where he was shot down 24-years prior to my visit. I have to say, that was one of the most humbling experiences in my life to that point. 

I paid the $12 dollar admission fee for both of us and started to wander around the museum. My first stop was to look at the room Dr. King and his advisors stayed in. The Lorraine Motel was now a museum - a civil rights museum. The lifelike mannequins dotted the old hotel in the attempt to bring back the era, struggles and times of the 1960’s. It was strange as I thought, just outside, less then 10-minutes ago, the world didn’t seem to respect this monument to a struggle of a people. It was almost as if, the museum and Dr. King didn’t exist. 

        ​ As my tour guide and I got familiar and closer to each other, I could tell that “DK” had had a very hard life. He would have never survived a Minnesota winter. He smelled of gin and cigarettes with a horrid mustiness that could have attracted flies. Other than that, Daddy K was solid. We went to the room where MLK spent the night before his assassination. Room 306 was partitioned off with a glass wall. In it you could see in the room, left as it was on that tragic day of April 4, 1968. 

        ​My tour guide, Daddy K told me the good Reverend (King), and the owners were good friends. He also startled me when he spoke about the many celebrities including movie stars and singers that had stayed at the Lorraine when they came to Memphis. 

“The word on the street was that if Dr. King or gentleman from the NAACP showed up, prostitutes would line the street vying to be picked to service the civil rights movement leaders,” said Daddy K, who later also admitted he was a “runner” for the heroin addicts who stayed at the hotel. 

The FBI sealed the file with these alleged recordings of Dr. King for 50-years, not available to the general public until 2027.  Random bloggers have reported on a leak in the sixties that said, “There FBI bugs reportedly picked up 14 hours of party chatter, the clinking of glasses and the sounds of illicit sex–including King’s cries of “I’m f–ing for God” and “I’m not a Negro tonight!” (Hunt, 2012).

           Without actually hearing the recordings, I’m still a little troubled about their existence. 

        ​With disbelief, I continued to view the room King slept in before the night of his fatal killing. There was a box of chicken wings – just the bones on a plate with a soft drink of some kind. The Lorraine Motel’s kitchen didn’t stay open very late and sometimes the civil rights leader and his entourage would order take-out from a small diner down the street. The curators of hotel made the room to look like there had been a meeting, with a few people – the ashtrays were filled with half-smoked cigarettes and butts. Toothpicks on the table – used, and the bed unmade – like someone had just let for the day and it was the job of hotel housekeeping to clean up. This was a dark area in my mind, thinking what would happen to King the next day outside of room 306.  

    ​I got to the point where everything around me was gone. I had time traveled back to the night before King’s assassination. What if I could warn Dr. King’s of the imminent danger to his life tomorrow? There I was, stuck in the playground of my mind imaging what America would be like if Dr. King would have avoided that fatal day.  

    ​The prostitute thing still weighed heavy on my mind. How could a man with such moral virtue and character do this? I tuned to my tour guide and said, “You’re bullshitting about the hooker thing, aren’t you?” Daddy K assured me that a whole underground culture in Memphis knew about this and protected Dr. King – but made sure he had everything he needed in Memphis. 

     My two-hour visit to the Lorraine Motel, the site of the National Civil Rights Museum had been the most stressful day in my life. 

    ​My pilgrimage to civil rights had turned into a reality about people and the flesh. 

        ​ I waited inside for a taxi to take me to Beale Street and B.B. King’s nightclub so I could drown my crappy day in a Glenlivet scotch and a tall Stella beer. In back of the cab, I thought, “This is not how my day was supposed to be. My visit to the death place of Dr. Martin Luther King was to be a spiritual awakening for the civil rights activist in me – not make me hate everything I stood for and believed.” 

        ​ Was this the message I needed from my visit? Is time for me to give up? Confusion and anger filled every inch of my being. For a moment, I thought about what King said, and what would happen if I did not speak up: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” (King, 1963). My people matter, the world matters. The people outside on the street near the Lorraine Motel matter. The world needs more men and women like Dr. Martin Luther King. We suffer today because Dr. King suffered the ultimate price – his life.  

 

Works Cited

 

Armada, B. J. (May 2012). Place Politics: Material Transformation and Community   

                 Identity at the National Civil Rights Museum. Journal of Black Studies, 

                40(5), 897-914. doi: 10.1177/0021934708321848

 

Hunt, E. The Holocaust Denier (January 2012). FBI Recordings of Martin Luther 

                 King Beating White Hookers During Sex – Ordered Sealed for Fifty 

              Years. Retrieved September 29, 2012. http://www.holocaustdenier.com/martin-   

                  luther-king-fraud-sealed-records-fbi-jew-communist-puppet/

 

King, Jr., M. L. (1963, August 28). Martin Luther King's Speech: “I have a dream.” 

                Retrieved September 29, 2012, from http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/martin-  

                 luther-kings-speech-dream-full-text/story?id=14358231#.UGdzhY6VV8x

 

Sanders, T. (2006, January 20). “The story of the lorraine motel in memphis.” Retrieved  

               September 29, 2012. http://voices.yahoo.com/the-story-lorraine-motel-memphis-

             14303.html?cat=37