Day 7: The Lorraine Motel, the WJC Presidential Library, and Central High School

Memphis TN to Little Rock AR

Got up, had the complimentary breakfast again (Hampton Inn has a standard menu), and drove south out of downtown Memphis at 8:00. Before leaving Memphis, I wanted to see the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot and killed on April 4, 1968. The hotel has been preserved as part of the National Civil Rights Museum. We were too early for the museum's opening, but the area in front of the museum was open space from where we could take a picture of room 306, where a wreath has been placed.

We are now going west again via I-40 into Arkansas, another new state for both of us. After passing through the Mississippi River floodplain, the highway took us over some rolling hills and farmland. The area is decidedly rural. It was about 10:30 when we crossed over the Arkansas River, entered Little Rock, and drove to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. Although a fan of President Clinton, I have to say that the library was like a "double-wide in the sky" (I hope I just coined that) and another case of hagiography. The reproduction of Clinton's Oval Office was the most interesting part.

At 12:30 after the library tour, we drove west parallel to the river and ate at Doe's Eat Place, only open for lunch, and ordered tamales wrapped in parchment (not corn husks) and chili. Tamales are popular in this part of the South although I have seen virtually no Hispanics on this trip. Blacks seem to do the manual labor, like housekeeping, unlike in North Carolina where that type of work would be done mostly by Hispanics.

 

After eating, we made our way to the Central High School National Historic Site, where the "Little Rock Nine" desegregated the white Central High School in 1957. It's a beautiful and large Art Deco and Gothic building still used as a high school, and we were lucky enough to arrive to catch a 1:15 guided tour of the school, the only way to see the inside of the building, including the auditorium and cafeteria. We were with a large group of students from a Louisiana charter school who were taking a Civil Rights tour of the South and were following our general path.

About 2:30, we checked into a Hampton Inn downtown near the River Market area, a collection of shops, restaurants, and bars along the river. Mom rested, and I headed out again and walked a few blocks to the Old State House which is now used as a museum. Mostly built of wood and stucco in a Greek Revival style in 1836 when Arkansas became a state, it is a very modest building replaced by the new state house in 1911.

When I got back to the hotel about 5:00, we relaxed with G&Ts and boiled peanuts. We didn't go out for the rest of the evening.