Lorraine Hotel, Memphis, TN
The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. It is the site where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
The Windsor Hotel, at the corner of Mulberry Street and Huling Avenue near downtown Memphis, opened in the 1920s. Walter and Loree Bailey purchased the Windsor in 1942 and re-named it the Lorraine Hotel, after both Loree and the song "Sweet Lorraine".
In the days of legal segregation, the Windsor / Lorraine was one of the few hotels in Memphis open to black guests. Its location, walking distance from Beale Street, the main street of Memphis' black community, made it attractive to visiting celebrities. When Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, or Nat "King" Cole came to town, they stayed at the Lorraine.
Later, an annex, typical in design of motels built along America's new interstate highways in the 1960s, was added behind the original mustard-yellow brick hotel.
In March 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King visited Memphis to support the city's striking garbage collectors. He checked into the Lorraine, and led a march that, despite his policy of non-violence. turned violent. A second march was then planned.
On April 3, in a speech at Memphis Mason Temple, Dr. King said "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top. I won't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life."
Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine the next night, as he stood on the balcony outside room 306, on the motel's second floor. The official account of the shooting named a single assassin, James Earl Ray, who fired one shot from the top floor of a rooming house whose rear windows overlooked the motel.
After the assassination, the Lorraine became a residential motel which Walter Bailey, who still owned it, operated at a loss. He declared bankruptcy in 1982, and the motel was ordered sold. There was a real possibility of losing the historic buildings to developers. On the morning of the auction, a group of Memphis businessmen came up with enough in checks and pledges to buy the motel. They planned to remodel it and open a museum.
Jacqueline Smith, the Lorraine's last resident, refused to leave. She was forcibly removed in 1988, and then maintained a permanent vigil of protest on the sidewalk across Mulberry Street. She had a couple old sofas and some bed sheet signs, and claimed that money used to turn the motel into a tourist attraction could have been better spent on converting it to public housing.
The National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1992. Room 306 is marked with a wreath. Inside, it's as it was on the evening of April 4, 1968. The 1959 Dodge and 1968 Cadillac parked under it are identical to the cars, in the same parking spaces, appearing in photographs taken moments after the shooting.
In 2002, the museum acquired the rooming house from where the fatal shot may have come, and opened exhibits on its top floor.
Lorraine Hotel, Memphis, TN
The Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum. It is the site where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
The Windsor Hotel, at the corner of Mulberry Street and Huling Avenue near downtown Memphis, opened in the 1920s. Walter and Loree Bailey purchased the Windsor in 1942 and re-named it the Lorraine Hotel, after both Loree and the song "Sweet Lorraine".
In the days of legal segregation, the Windsor / Lorraine was one of the few hotels in Memphis open to black guests. Its location, walking distance from Beale Street, the main street of Memphis' black community, made it attractive to visiting celebrities. When Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, or Nat "King" Cole came to town, they stayed at the Lorraine.
Later, an annex, typical in design of motels built along America's new interstate highways in the 1960s, was added behind the original mustard-yellow brick hotel.
In March 1968, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King visited Memphis to support the city's striking garbage collectors. He checked into the Lorraine, and led a march that, despite his policy of non-violence. turned violent. A second march was then planned.
On April 3, in a speech at Memphis Mason Temple, Dr. King said "We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountain top. I won't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life."
Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine the next night, as he stood on the balcony outside room 306, on the motel's second floor. The official account of the shooting named a single assassin, James Earl Ray, who fired one shot from the top floor of a rooming house whose rear windows overlooked the motel.
After the assassination, the Lorraine became a residential motel which Walter Bailey, who still owned it, operated at a loss. He declared bankruptcy in 1982, and the motel was ordered sold. There was a real possibility of losing the historic buildings to developers. On the morning of the auction, a group of Memphis businessmen came up with enough in checks and pledges to buy the motel. They planned to remodel it and open a museum.
Jacqueline Smith, the Lorraine's last resident, refused to leave. She was forcibly removed in 1988, and then maintained a permanent vigil of protest on the sidewalk across Mulberry Street. She had a couple old sofas and some bed sheet signs, and claimed that money used to turn the motel into a tourist attraction could have been better spent on converting it to public housing.
The National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1992. Room 306 is marked with a wreath. Inside, it's as it was on the evening of April 4, 1968. The 1959 Dodge and 1968 Cadillac parked under it are identical to the cars, in the same parking spaces, appearing in photographs taken moments after the shooting.
In 2002, the museum acquired the rooming house from where the fatal shot may have come, and opened exhibits on its top floor.