Me at the Ida B. Wells historical marker at Beale Street and Rufus Thomas

Yesterday Jordan and I visited the National Civil Rights Museum here in Memphis. Its primary focus is to document the nineteenth and twentieth century African-American struggle for liberty. Although the Civil Rights museum is a fantastic example of a large, well-funded and well-developed museum, there are also some negative issues that deserve consideration.

Upon entering the museum, a visitor veers to the right and begins the tour with a depiction of slavery. From there, the museum continues chronologically through the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement. The first half of the tour ends in a replica of rooms 306 and 307 of the Lorraine Motel, the former being the room where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was staying during the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike. The second half of the tour continues across the street in the former boarding house where James Earl Ray is said to have fired the shot that killed Dr. King. It begins with a chronology of the days surrounding the assassination and continues with replicas of both the bedroom where Ray stayed and the common bathroom from where the shot was fired.

As far as interpretation is concerned, the Civil Rights Museum does a great job. The facts included in the exhibit are accurate, clear for the most part, and free of grammatical error. The museum also does a great job of situating the movement in its cultural context and provoking the visitor to think clearly about its foundations and legacy, posing important questions and depicting multiple theories. I did appreciate the various forms of media in the museum, including text, image, artifact, video and audio. I also especially enjoyed the exhibits’ larger artifacts, including a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, a destroyed Greyhound to illustrate the Freedom Rides, and a Memphis garbage truck to represent the Sanitation Workers' Strike.

I did perceive some issues during our tour, however. The abundance of text in the exhibits is overwhelming. There is no way to read all of it and, when one attempts to do so, the exhibit space becomes congested. I heard several complaints, including “I feel like I’m not getting to see all of this,” and “I’m so overwhelmed.” To be fair, we visited on a Monday afternoon, when the museum is congested because Tennessee residents with a valid driver’s license can enter for free. I appreciate free admission because it allows many people to attend who otherwise would be unable, but I can’t help feeling that the driver’s license requirement is more restrictive than it ought to be, undermining the mission of the museum to educate and inspire the public about Civil Rights.

The overall flow of the museum was sometimes confusing. Exhibits interpreting M.K. Gandhi and Barack Obama were awkwardly placed. The Gandhi exhibit occupies space between the two tour halves, extracting visitors from the narrative of events. Similarly, the Obama exhibit is situated at the end of the Ray trial exhibit, but before the exhibits on post-MLK civil rights. Indeed, the entire second half of the tour lacked a cohesive flow. Jordan and I spent time trying to figure out how the exhibit was supposed to continue, particularly at and after the introduction of the boarding house bathroom replica. The physical path of the museum should reflect the chronological flow of interpretation more clearly. Jordan, a weapons enthusiast, also noticed conflicting information about the gun used by Ray on the day of the assassination. One portion of the exhibit states that Ray purchased a 30.06 and traded it for a .243-styled rifle the next day, while another portion states that Ray used a 30.06 to fire at Dr. King.

Finally, one ought not discuss the National Civil Rights Museum without mentioning the very contentious presence of Jacqueline Smith, who as of today, has protested the Civil Rights Museum for 24 years and two months. Smith, a former resident of the Lorraine Motel, maintains that the forced removal of herself and other residents of the motel desecrates King’s memory, and that his legacy would be better served through service to the poor and maintaining the integrity of the neighborhood.[1] She has received support from many Civil Rights and social justice leaders, including Arun Gandhi, the grandson of M.K. Gandhi and founder of the Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, hosted at Christian Brothers University in Memphis. I left the Civil Rights Museum with more questions than I had upon entering, especially after stopping by Smith’s protest corner, as many of her ideas echo those informing the museum’s mission and interpretation.  

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[1] For more information, see Ms. Smith’s website at www.fulfillthedream.net