The Lorraine Motel Feeling The Memphis Blues
"If Beale Street could talk, as James Baldwin famously imagined, then somewhere around Memphis's South Fourth Street it would let out an agonizing cry. Facing east, the garish neon commodification of the blues stands behind you--a trap for tourists and an insult to the legacy of a great musical tradition. Commerce here is thriving from a culture it doesn't respect. Ahead sprawls the desolation and poverty of the communities that gave blues its meaning and to whom the blues returned some dignity.
"A block away at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center, around eighty people have gathered to prevent the pilfering of yet more local black heritage. Twenty years ago, the Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated, was turned into a National Civil Rights Museum. The chair of the executive committee of its board, J.R. 'Pitt' Hyde III, is a wealthy white Republican.
"Charged with safeguarding a vital landmark in the nation's racial history, Hyde lobbied for the defeat of Harold Ford Jr.'s bid for the vacant Senate seat from Tennessee in what was widely regarded as the most racist campaign of the 2006 election. While Hyde has been representing the civil rights museum, the company he founded, AutoZone, has been embroiled in a longstanding EEOC racial discrimination lawsuit."
The board, on which blacks are a minority, is packed with those who dedicate their lives not to civil rights but to corporate profits. And they know how to do business. Recently the board discussed exercising an option to buy the museum building from the State of Tennessee, which owns it, for $1. (Apparently they never made a formal offer, as they knew it would be rejected.) Black history on sale at bargain prices."
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