National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
Memphis, Tennessee
From the exterior, the Lorraine Motel looks much as it did on April 4, 1968, when King stepped outside Room 306 onto the motel balcony and into the early evening dusk. Today, a red-and-white funeral wreath hangs on the railing, marking the spot where King fell as shots rang out from the boardinghouse across the street.
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, wraps around the motel and held its grand reopening ceremony in 2014 following a $27 million renovation of its exhibits. The project kept iconic elements and artifacts, such as a sit-in counter, a Freedom Rider bus and a Memphis Sanitation truck but updated them with interactive video, audio and touchscreens.
“You get pulled into the history and the stories being told,” said Faith Morris, chief marketing and external affairs officer.
Visitors can crouch in a slave ship and hear slaves chanting and moaning, listen to the music of the Black Power/Black Pride era and watch history-makers tell their stories in the “Acts of Courage” videos.
After making their way through the galleries, visitors eventually reach the “I Am a Man” exhibit that tells how King came to Memphis to support sanitation workers in their strike demanding equal wages and better benefits.
Where walls once stood, glass windows now allow guests to view the preserved rooms 307 and 306 where King and other civil rights leaders often stayed when they visited Memphis and where King said his last words. He asked musician Ben Branch to play “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” at that evening’s event.
“When they come to the King rooms, it’s an emotional experience,” she said.
Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site
Little Rock, Arkansas
When the Little Rock Nine tried to enter previously all-white Little Rock Central High School on September 4, 1957, a mob of angry segregationists met them, as did crowds of press and National Guard troops that were under orders from the governor to keep the students out.
By the end of the month, the same nine students were once again met by National Guard troops — this time ordered by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to protect them as they walked up the steps into the school.
With eight of the surviving Little Rock Nine students in attendance, the Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site in Little Rock, Arkansas, marked the 60th anniversary of the integration in September 2017.
Many visitors don’t realize that the National Historic Site is still an active school, so access to the building is limited, said chief of interpretation David Kilton. However, the site includes a visitor center, a commemorative garden and a historically preserved Mobil gas station that acted as a sort of pressroom because reporters used the station’s pay phone to call in their stories.
The site is working with the neighboring church to install a bench in the spot where student Elizabeth Eckford sat, alone, surrounded by press — which drew the attention of the segregationists. On the corner is Ponder’s Drug Store, where she “tried to seek shelter from the crowd that day and was turned away,” he said.
Groups should arrange guided tours at least two weeks in advance, and “rangers will help guests walk in those footsteps and see that story,” Kilton said.
