The Lorraine Motel

  1968 was the height of the Civil Rights movement, when Martin Luther King, Jr. Came to Memphis in support of the sanitation workers' strike. He stayed at the only African-American owned motel in town, the Lorraine. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of the motel.

  Following nine million dollars of renovations, the motel, and associated buildings, opened as the National Civil Rights Museum in 1991. The history of slavery in America, dating back to the 17th century, and the advent of the Civil Rights Movement are well depicted. Lori and I were in our teens and early twenties as this movement gained momentum, so it was important to us to see how history looked back on these events. There is an awful lot to see in this complex, which includes the rooming house on Mulberry street across from the motel, from where James Earl Ray shot Dr. King. We were quite moved by many of the exhibits and impressed by the thoroughness of its presentations.

              www.civilrightsmuseum.org/

The Lorraine Motel (now part of the National Civil Rights Museum) is less than a block off of downtown's South Main Street.

The balcony where Dr. King was standing when he was shot. Vintage cars remain parked below.

Famous photo right after Dr. King was shot, with his supporters pointing towards the rooming house on Mulberry St.

The National Civil Rights museum traces the history of slavery in America back to the 17th century.

Rosa Parks' defiance of an order to move to the back of a bus is memorialized by this statue of her.

The Woolworth's lunch-counter sit-in of February 1, 1960 was one of the major turning points of the Civil Rights movement.

In May of 1961, a group of Freedom Riders trying to promote integration, were attacked in Anniston, Alabama and their Greyhound bus was burned.

The August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom inspired an estimated 300,000 to voice a call for change. This is when Dr. King made his famous "I have a dream" speech.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s room (number 306) in the Lorraine Motel as it looked in April of 1968.

Across the street from the Lorraine Motel is the Mulberry St. rooming house from which James Earl Ray shot Dr. King.

This is the actual room from which the shot occurred.

View of the Lorraine Motel from the Mulberry St. rooming house.

Some of the fake I.D.'s used by James Earl Ray when arrested in London two months after the assassination.