October 29…. National Civil Rights Museum

Memphis was a center point in the civil rights movement in the US, all the way from pre-civil war America into the 1960’s and through to today.

The Lorraine Motel, the location of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, has been turned into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Exhibits and artifacts document the way people were captured and enslaved in Africa in the 15 and 1600’s and shipped to various parts of the world, to be used as forced labor. By the beginning of the 1800’s, almost a million people were kept in bondage in the United States, and by the close of the Civil War, the number had risen to over 4 million.

The museum documents Reconstruction after the war, and continues on through the ensuing years, examining grass roots movements, court decisions, influential leaders, and turning points in history.

Very well done exhibits, covering events in a factual way, but with enough multi-media to engage a broad audience. We spent over three hours here, and I still don’t feel like we were able to absorb it all. It’s all so emotionally moving, it gets a bit overwhelming, trying to do it all at once.