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Published: November 12th 2011
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So we are back walking in Memphis – at least until we pick up the car from Hertz!
Must admit to wondering if we needed any more time here as we had such a good look around as part of our coach tour; maybe we would have been better off getting the car in New Orleans and driving to the Smoky Mountains from there........
However we ended up having one of the best days of the trip..........
We stayed right in central (downtown) Memphis rather than like last time when we were miles away at the Heartbreak Hotel, so everywhere was well within walking distance.
We caught the lift down to the lobby with two very very excitable British women who were off to Graceland. I thought they might burst with excitement. I guess if you really love Elvis, being here would be like a dream come true.
We had a Groupon for breakfast at a place called Cockadoos – or was it Cockadees, can’t remember! Anyway it was advertised as a restaurant where old fashioned southern charm still existed – so it was a bit of a disappointment when we walked in and a woman behind the counter barely
looked up from what she was reading and waved vaguely around the room saying ‘y’all sit where y’all like’
(Incidentally I’m not sure she did say y’all but I just like putting it in everywhere!!)
However the food was great and we weren’t there to make new best friends so it didn’t matter.
We were going to take the trolley bus up to the Civil Rights Museum but ended up walking as it wasn’t far.......wouldn’t want to be walking round here at night but perfectly safe early in the morning.
The Museum is at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. The museum owns the motel and also the boarding house over the road where James Earl Ray allegedly fired the shot.
We’d been advised to invest in the audio guide and were so glad we did as there is SO much to read and the guide pointed you to the most important and relevant things on display.
We began with a film ‘The Witness’ which was the story of MLK’s death as told by Rev Samuel ‘Billy’ Kyles who was there on the balcony with MLK on that fateful evening. He has always wondered why
God allowed him to be there and has decided it’s so someone can continue speaking about the event and its background. Anyway it was a good way to get an overview of what happened although a bit harrowing.
The museum then explores the Civil Rights movement with displays and very effective tableaux depicting key events in its history. For example, there’s a bus where you can climb on board and overhear the conversation between the driver and Rosa Parkes, and a Woolworths soda counter where white teenagers protested at segregation by encouraging their black classmates to come and sit with them and the white reaction to this. I know racist things happened in the UK too and it's so important to remind ourselves how low humans can stoop in their prejudices and to teach our children something different.
It took us 2 or 3 hours to look around and the museum ends up outside the motel room and balcony where MLK was assassinated......very sobering to be actually a few inches from a place so indelibly engraved in modern history.
Then we went over the road and saw the exhibition there......again you can see the bathroom and window where James Earl
Ray stood to fire the gun, slightly macabre and a bit gratuitous (but of course I stood there) The rest of the room is devoted to all the ‘who really did it?’ theories. All the forensic evidence was far too complicated for me to understand but I think we came away thinking that James Earl Ray almost definitely did it, but not sure why and if anyone else funded him. He was a bit of an unlikely solo assassin.
Outside the museum we saw Jackie, the lady who was a maid at the Lorraine Motel and lost her job when it was sold to be turned into a museum. She protests daily out there and has done for over 20 years....says the money the museum cost could have provided housing for Memphis people. Ten out of ten for tenacity, Jackie!!
We walked back to Beale Street and sat in the sunshine having a drink and people watching. Then we saw the Backbeat Tour bus arriving where we had tickets for their Mojo tour. This was another highlight. We were taken in this old school bus around Memphis with a tour guide telling us lots of musical information and playing his
guitar and singing too. Sounds corny but it was wonderful. Our guide, Gary Hardy is the man who bought Sun Studios in the 80’s to save it from being demolished and he had lived all his life in Memphis, and through his work as a recording engineer and a jobbing musician he’d met many of the great musicians so he had lots of anecdotes (were they all true? Who cares!)
He said he took Sam Phillips secretary out for lunch weekly until she died and as she was really the one who discovered Elvis she had lots of stories to share. He said Elvis died his hair black, he was naturally quite fair......that was a new one! The celeb stories were fun but I probably enjoyed Gary’s own anecdotes about growing up in Memphis best. He’s about my age and he talked about things I can remember reading about as a pop mad teenager who thought America must be like heaven!
After the tour we went back to the hotel, declining the Peabody ducks who were just across the road from our hotel!!!!
That evening we went back to Beale Street....we’d wondered if it would be a bit dead as
it was a Monday but no fear! Things were hopping! We had a meal at BB Kings Blues club and listened to their house band who were great! Had a bit of a dance and then wandered around Beale, in and out of clubs to listen to the music. We ended up at Blues City Cafe where Backbeat’s Gary Hardy was performing. He plays and sounds just like Johnny Cash and is very good, especially as there was no cover charge!
But by now we were pooped and had to be up early to get to the airport to collect our car so we (reluctantly) accepted that we’d done Memphis but what an amazing day we’d had. Such great memories!
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