The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States from the 17th century to the present. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel, the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Two other buildings and their adjacent property, also connected with the King assassination, have been acquired as part of the museum complex.
After renovations, the museum reopened in 2014 with an increase in the amount of multimedia and interactive displays, as well as various short films to show highlights. The museum is owned and operated by the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation, based in Memphis. The Lorraine Motel is owned by the Tennessee State Museum and leased long term to the Foundation to operate as part of the museum complex. In 2016, the museum was honored by becoming an affiliate museum of the Smithsonian Institution. It is also a contributing property to the South Main Street Historic District of the National Register of Historic Places.
Location and complex
The complex is located at 450 Mulberry Street, with all properties except the Lorraine Motel owned by the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation. The motel is owned by the state of Tennessee and operated by the foundation under a 20-year lease with the state museum in Nashville.
The main museum is located on the south edge of downtown Memphis, in what is now the South Main Arts District, about six blocks east of the Mississippi River. The main site includes the museum, the Lorraine Motel, and associated buildings. The museum also owns the Young and Morrow Building at 422 Main Street, where James Earl Ray initially confessed (and later recanted) to shooting King. The complex includes Canipe's Amusement Store at 418 Main Street, next to the rooming house where the murder weapon with Ray's fingerprints was found. Included on these grounds is the brushy lot that stood between the rooming house and the motel.
The museum exhibits a number of vehicles of historic value or which are otherwise relevant to the time period. Vehicles on display include an International Harvester garbage truck in an exhibit on the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike that brought King to Memphis, James Earl Ray's 1966 white Ford Mustang, a 1968 Cadillac and 1959 Dodge parked outside the motel, a re-creation of the burned shell of a Greyhound bus used by Freedom Riders, and a bus representative of the Montgomery bus boycott.
History
The site first opened as the 16-room Windsor Hotel in 1924,"Windsor Hotel—Newly opened", Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 10, 1924, page 26. and was later known as the Marquette Hotel. In 1945, Walter Bailey purchased it and renamed it for his wife Loree and the song "Sweet Lorraine".
During the segregation era, Bailey operated the hotel as upscale lodging that catered to a black clientele. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned segregated businesses, Bailey believed he needed to improve the facility to compete with other hotels that were no longer whites-only.Stokes, John. "Competition Now Goes Both Ways", Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 17, 1964, page 44. He expanded the complex significantly later that year, adding a second floor, a swimming pool, and drive-up access for new rooms on the south side of the complex. Accordingly, he then changed the name from the Lorraine Hotel to the Lorraine Motel.Grand opening advertisement, Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 13, 1964, Section 2, page 4. Many musicians stayed at the motel in the 1960s while recording at Memphis' Stax Records, including Ray Charles, Lionel Hampton, Aretha Franklin, Ethel Waters, Otis Redding, the Staple Singers and Wilson Pickett.
Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in early April 1968, while working to organize protests around the ongoing Memphis sanitation strike. While standing on the balcony outside his room on the evening of April 4, King was suddenly shot once through the neck by an unseen assassin's sniper's bullet. King fell to the ground, bleeding from his head and neck. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, but the wound was fatal. He died at the hospital an hour after the shooting.
King was 39 years old. James Earl Ray, a 40-year-old resident of a rooming house across the street from the motel, was convicted of his murder in 1969. Ray pleaded guilty to the murder on his forty-first birthday, but later recanted his confession. The King family, alongside many others, have long believed that Ray was not the culprit and that the assassination was carried out by a group of conspirators, possibly including agents of the U.S. federal government. In the Loyd Jowers trial in 1999, a Memphis jury found Loyd Jowers, owner of a restaurant near the motel, liable for King's wrongful death.
Within days of the assassination, King's supporters began asking Bailey to build a permanent memorial at the Lorraine Motel, with one early suggestion being an eternal flame similar to the one at the grave of John F. Kennedy."Strike Action Still Centers On Mediation", Memphis Press-Scimitar, April 11, 1968, front page. On May 2, one of the caravans of marchers headed to participate in the Poor People's March on Washington started its journey at the motel. King's widow Coretta and Ralph Abernathy, his successor as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, unveiled a memorial plaque at the motel shortly before the march started.Scroggs, Larry. "Emotion Outpaces Mules As Poor People's March Steps Off From Fatal Spot", Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 3, 1968, front page. In June, Room 306 was converted into a shrine to King's memory which was opened to the public."King Memorial Lures Stream Of Onlookers", Memphis Commercial Appeal, June 17, 1968, page 8. Touring the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Room was initially free, but later cost an admission fee of one dollar."No admission charge", Memphis Press-Scimitar, March 5, 1983, page 33.
Establishing the memorial foundation
In the years following the assassination, business at the motel declined and Bailey ran into increasing debts, even as the assassination site became a frequent destination for sightseers. Approximately 15,000 people signed the motel's guestbook in 1980,Dunn, Ed. "Lorraine Motel Options Given", Memphis Press-Scimitar, January 16, 1981, second section, page 15. while a report by the Shelby County Office of Planning and Development that year estimated that 70,000 people took commercial tours that stopped at the motel annually."Lorraine Eyed As Tourist Spot", Memphis Commercial Appeal, November 8, 1980, page 16. Based on the findings of this report, the county considered purchasing the motel and turning it into a memorial or museum.
In April 1982, Bailey defaulted on a $140,000 construction loan, causing the lender to attempt foreclosure on the property.Downing, Shirley. "Foreclosure To Force Lorraine Motel's Sale", Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 21, 1982, page B1. Bailey filed for bankruptcy a few days later, halting the foreclosure auction,"Bankruptcy Filing Stops Lorraine Motel Auction", Memphis Press-Scimitar, April 27, 1982, page A6. and the news of the foreclosure provoked local business leaders to try to save the motel."Efforts To Save Lorraine Motel Gain Support", Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 24, 1982, page B1. The Martin Luther King Memphis Memorial Foundation, a newly established non-profit organization, agreed to purchase the motel from Bailey for $240,000, which it would need to raise from donors to finalize the sale."Group Purchasing Lorraine Motel", Memphis Commercial Appeal, April 28, 1982, front page. Later that year, the motel was added to the National Register of Historic Places, as part of the South Main Street Historic District.
The foundation held a series of fundraising events to purchase the motel property,Smith, Whitney. "Bid To Save Lorraine Motel Elicits Nationwide Response", Memphis Commercial Appeal, September 21, 1982, page B1. including an exhibition basketball game at the Mid-South Coliseum that featured Magic Johnson, Isiah Thomas, George Gervin, and Marques Johnson."Jackson's first steps go in right direction", Memphis Press-Scimitar, September 18, 1982, page 26. However, these efforts raised only $96,568 of the needed $240,000 in time for the set deadline of October 28, 1982, leading the motel to be placed back on the auction block.Locker, Richard. "Hopes Dim For Drive To Save The Lorraine", Memphis Commercial Appeal, October 28, 1982, front page and page A12. The foundation took out a $50,000 loan and was able to win the ensuing auction with its only bid of $144,000.Williams, Leroy Jr. "Lorraine Is Saved By Foundation Bid", Memphis Commercial Appeal, December 14, 1982, front page and page A8.
The group, which changed its name to the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation, stopped charging admission to tour Room 306 in March 1983. The foundation continued to operate the Lorraine as a single-room occupancy motel while seeking to raise funds to convert the building into a museum. However, it proved difficult to gather the millions of dollars needed for the construction. In May 1987, the foundation reached an agreement with the state of Tennessee, Shelby County, and the city of Memphis to develop the museum. The foundation agreed to sell the property to the state, which would provide $4.4 million in funding to build a museum that would be designed and controlled by the foundation, while the city and county would each provide another $2.2 million.Locker, Richard. "Lorraine Motel civil rights museum is OK'd", Memphis Commercial Appeal, May 15, 1987, front page and page A6.
The motel closed to customers on January 10, 1988, when the state took possession of the property. Former owner Walter Bailey moved out of his residence in the motel that day after living there for over 40 years.Buser, Lawrence. "Emotions flow as motel empties", Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 11, 1988, front page and page A8. Bailey died later that year.
Jacqueline Smith protest
When the motel closed, one of the remaining long-term tenants, Jacqueline Smith, refused to leave her room.Christion, Cornell. "Last tenant refuses to vacate Lorraine", Memphis Commercial Appeal, January 30, 1988, page A12. Smith, who had lived at the motel since 1973 and had worked there as a housekeeper, protested the creation of the museum. Smith thought King would have objected to having millions of dollars spent on a memorial for him, evicting poor residents in the process, instead of policies and programs that would benefit the neighborhood community, which was generally lower-income and predominantly Black at the time. She saw the creation of the museum as part of a larger gentrification of the South Main Street area, pushing out poor residents as part of transforming it into the South Main Arts District.
For several weeks Smith continued to live inside the closed motel, which at the time was surrounded with an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence. On March 2, 1988, four sheriff's deputies forcibly carried her out of the building, while she shouted, "You people are making a mistake [...] If King were alive he wouldn't want this.""Evicted from the Lorraine Motel, last tenant vows to keep fighting", Memphis Commercial Appeal, March 3, 1988, page B2. Before the eviction, Smith had told reporters, "If I can't live at The Lorraine, I'll camp out on the sidewalk out front." After she was removed from the building and her belongings were dumped on the curb outside, she covered the items with a tarp and pitched a tent next to them.