On a sunny autumn afternoon, I went walking in Memphis, down the famed yet more abbreviated than expected strip of bars and music venues on Beale Street. It was my first trip to the southern city steeped in Black history, music, and culture. Memphis is where the blues, soul, and rock and roll were born. It’s also where Martin Luther King Jr. died.
The highlights of my two-day trip were chatting with proud locals and exploring two monumental and moving museums: the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel.
On a sidewalk near the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, I met Jaqueline Smith, a long-term resident of the motel until she was forcibly evicted in 1988. For 36 years, Smith has protested her eviction, what she deems the museum’s glorification of King’s death, and the city’s rampant gentrification.
Smith had a bullhorn and a table draped in a banner that read, “My aim is to relocate the National Civil Rights Museum and establish the Lorraine Motel as a living testimony to Dr. King’s dream.”
That dream, she told the BBC in 2018, would have included “support for the homeless and disadvantaged, healthcare and help for the old and infirm. These are the issues that mattered to Dr. King and they still matter today.”
During my visit, I stayed at a trendy boutique hotel across the street from the Lorraine, where most of the front desk staffers were young and white (there was a bubbly brother who assisted me during check-in and greeted me each day). About 64% of Memphis residents are Black, so Smith’s stance on gentrification rang true. I chatted with the tenacious Tennessean several times and got a glimpse beneath her protective exterior when a friendly couple stopped by with a surprise lunch delivery.
“Oh my God, I thought he was Bobby Blue Bland,” she said giddily as the man in a black leather cap and velour tracksuit approached her.
I asked the man, whose name was Roosevelt, what he hoped for Memphis, where the crime rate decreased in 2024 but was still higher than the national average.
“I hope and pray, for my grandchildren, that we as Black people can come together. Because we are a strong people,” he said.
Before it became the Lorraine Motel, it operated under different names and management. In 1945, African American couple Walter and Loree Bailey purchased the property and renamed it after the popular jazz song “Sweet Lorraine.” The Lorraine became a Green Book stop for African American travelers in segregated Memphis, and in the 60s it was a popular hangout for artists and musicians from Stax Records.
After King’s assassination, Loree Bailey suffered a stroke and passed away a few days later. Walter Bailey ran the hotel until he declared bankruptcy in 1982. A local nonprofit saved the site from foreclosure and it became part of the National Civil Rights Museum, which opened in 1991.
Before I toured the museum, I glimpsed filmmaker Spike Lee in a meditative moment on the balcony of Room 306, where Dr. King was fatally wounded. The beloved Brooklyn filmmaker was in town to receive an honor at the museum’s 2024 Freedom Award ceremony, along with attorney Sherrilyn Ifill and activist Xernona Clayton.
Outside of the museum, visitors eagerly snapped photos of the wreathed balcony, a scene frozen in time with two white Cadillac cars parked in front. Inside, there are nearly 300 artifacts, interactive media, and listening posts that guide visitors through five centuries of history — from uprisings during slavery, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements.
The heart of the collection is a riveting, large-scale replica that depicts the event that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956, with plaster statues of Rosa Parks and the white bus driver and audio of the driver demanding that Parks give up her seat and move to the back of the bus. Visitors can board the bus and take a seat.
Although it commemorates Dr. King’s death, the National Civil Rights Museum also honors his legacy and eloquently documents the triumphs and atrocities of the African American experience. When I reached the climactic point and peered into the glass-shielded room where King spent his final hours, I wept.
The museum’s renovated Legacy Building will likely open in early 2026, and will feature additional powerful and immersive exhibits, events, and conversations that draw from Dr. King’s last book, “Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos and Community.”
With the expansion, perhaps there’s room to hold and create a space for members of the community like Smith who have been displaced.
The Memphis Sound
“Stax was more to me than a record company. It was a movement; a cultural movement and a spiritual movement.” – Al Bell, Stax owner
Founded by Jim Stewart in 1957 as Satellite Records, he renamed and moved the business in 1959 to Soulsville, one of Memphis’s oldest neighborhoods and a historic Black community where the homegrown talent included Aretha “Queen of Soul” Franklin and blues pianist and singer Memphis Slim.
After being forced into bankruptcy in 1975, Stax Records remained vacant until it was demolished in 1989. In 2003, the site was re-imagined as the vibrant Stax Museum of American Soul Music, which pays homage to the gritty “Memphis sound” that forever changed the tune of rhythm and blues.
Johnnie Fant, a knowledgeable tour guide at this gem of a museum, explains that at least half of the Stax label’s famed music roster — including Isaac Hayes and Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the M.G.s) — grew up in the South Memphis neighborhood.
“This community spawned Stax. Jim Stewart really got lucky when he put his recording studio here,” said Fant. “There was just so much talent in this neighborhood — people in their teens who were musicians, singers, and just came here to see what’s going on, and the next thing you know they were being recorded.”
The facade of the museum resembles a classic movie theater, with a marquee that reads “Welcome to Soulsville.” Inside there are thousands of archives and artifacts, including rare stage costumes like Carla Thomas’ glam gowns and her father Rufus’ cape.
Standout installations include: the rotating display of Isaac Hayes’s teal blue Cadillac with a 24-carat gold exterior trim and white fur interior carpeting; the floor-to-ceiling Wall of Sound showcasing all of the albums and singles released by Stax and its subsidiary labels from 1957-1975, including Sam & Dave’s “Soul Man” and Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” posthumously released after his tragic death in a plane crash in 1967; and the replica of Studio A, where many of the Stax hits were recorded.
During my conversation with Fant, “Can’t Hide Love” by Earth, Wind & Fire played in the background. The history buff boasted that lead singer Maurice White was a son of Soulsville who honed his music chops at one of the area’s Black high schools.
Next door to the museum is the Stax Music Academy (both are run by the Soulsville Foundation, a nonprofit), which offers an afterschool program for students in grades 6-12 interested in pursuing careers in music, either on the performance or production side.
“What so many people take for granted is that Memphis history goes back to Robert R. Church, Ida B. Wells, and W.C. Handy,” Fant explained.
“Before Stax, it was people like Phineas Newborn and Jimmie Lunceford, jazz musicians who left here and went on to New York to make their mark there. That all started here.”
More Attractions
Don’t miss the bronze statue of journalist, educator, and anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells on the corner of Beale and Fourth Streets. The statue is placed near the location of the Memphis Free Speech newspaper Wells co-owned, which was burned down by an angry white mob.
Make sure to also visit the Clayborn Temple & I Am a Man Plaza at 294 Hernando Street, where in February 1968, nearly 1,000 sanitation workers marched daily from the church to City Hall carrying signs declaring “I AM A MAN” in protest of poor working conditions. On the plaza, a large sculpture pays tribute to the strikers and the legacy of Dr. King, and a wall engraved with the names of those who participated in the strike.
Where to Eat
For breakfast on the go, grab freshly prepared smoothies, juices, and sandwiches (the caprese sammie was delish) at the Black-owned Groovy Gratitude, tucked away on a residential block at 605 North 2nd St.
Sip and bite in the heart of downtown Memphis at South of Beale, located at 361 S. Main St., a bright and inviting eatery with good service and good food (the fried catfish sandwich with fries doesn’t disappoint). Dine in style at the Black-owned Mahogany River Terrace, housed in a former yacht club with views of the Mississippi River at 3092 Poplar Ave. The roomy restaurant with formal table settings (I learned what a charger plate is and not to move it) specializes in elevated Southern cuisine with a Creole flair and creative cocktails.