Lorraine Motel, Memphis

We started our trip at the city which traditionally marks the end of the civil rights movement, Memphis, Tennessee. This is where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel. The Motel has since been transformed into the National Civil Rights Museum.


The museum was incredible, combining timelines, photos, and other typical exhibits with vivid, first-hand experiences, like climbing aboard a 50's vintage Montgomery city bus and being startled as a loud voice ordered you to "move to the back." The exhibit commemorating the Freedom Rides had a burned-out Greyhound bus, and there was a realistic recreation of the Birmingham jail cell where Dr. King wrote his famous letter. But the climax of the museum was room 306 of the motel, where Dr. King spent his final minutes before exiting to the balcony, here he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray.


Across the street was an annex to the museum which examined in detail the assassination and subsequent investigation. The exhibits were located in the boarding house where James Earl Ray stayed, and you could peer out from the small bathroom window (at center), from which he fired the fatal shot.