National Civil Rights Museum

We did a lot of things for our Anniversary, and we went from Little Rock to Memphis to Nashville. So I'm going to break them up into a few different posts. First up, the National Civil Rights Museum. Some of the guys Rick works with had been to Memphis the week earlier and they told us to go. It was only a few minutes away from our hotel so we decided to stop by after we checked out. I figured that we would learn a little more about History and see some cool stuff, but I sure didn't expect it to bring both of us to tears. More than once.

The Museum was built on and around the Lorrain Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

The wreath marks the spot where MLK was standing when he received the shot that killed him.

I don't know why, but seeing this really hit me. And this phrase has stuck with me ever since I've seen it. I think about it often. This was on the ground as you walk into the museum.

You know when you go to museums and there is that one elderly couple with the headphones on stopping to look at every single display and read every single piece of information instead of just skipping to the good stuff like everyone else? We were that couple. We had the headsets and everything. It took us a good 3 hours to go through the entire museum. We listened to every story, looked at every picture, and read every word.

Rosa Parks. They had a bus there and had these mannequins to show where she and others were sitting.

Bus Riots.

"If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public: if he cannot send his children to the best public school available: if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him: if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?" - President John F. Kennedy.

We weren't allowed to have the flash on our cameras, but this was a little phone booth where you could hear actual recorded conversations between President John F. Kennedy and the Governor of Alabama.

This was a very large wheel that you could spin to simulate what a black citizen of Mississippi's chance to register to vote was.

My result.

The March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

MLK's hotel room.

The balcony where he was shot.

After you went through the part of the museum that was connected to the hotel, you could go across the street to where James Earl Ray was staying and the window he fired the shots from.

The bathroom where James Earl Ray was staying.

The gun that changed History.

Of all the the things we saw, this KKK robe was the most disturbing. We stood in front of it with knots in our stomachs for several minutes. We kept asking each other how does stuff like this happen? How do you get to this point? Around the robe were pictures of members of the KKK marching with burning crosses, and children in white robes marching behind them. One of the kids couldn't have been more than 3 years old. Obviously, that child had no idea what he was doing, and is not responsible for that, but what kind of man did that little boy grow up to be? It goes back to the picture in the brick outside of the museum doors - "Nobody's born a bigot." Nobody is born a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a religionist, a bully, or a hater. We teach people to be that way. We spend our whole lives trying to teach kids what to be, but isn't that the problem? I think we can learn from them more than we can teach them.

If you go to the National Civil Rights Museum, you gotta get the t-shirts! We actually didn't get them, but thought it was cool enough to take a picture.