Civil Rights

These are two very important sites in the Civil Rights Movement, only 135 miles apart.  Both places are very much worth a visit if you ever find yourself in Little Rock, Arkansas, or Memphis, Tennessee.

LITTLE ROCK NINE

(Little Rock, Arkansas)

September 25, 1957, became a historic day when nine students risked their lives to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Confronted by a hostile crowd and escorted by the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne, they shouldered the burden of integrating a then-segregated public school system. Although the Supreme Court’s Landmark 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education struck down racial segregation in public schools, it was the courageous actions of these nine young champions of school integration that tested the strength of that decision.   Their actions not only mobilized a nation to insure that access to a quality education was granted to all Americans, but they helped to define the civil rights movement. They became known as the Little Rock Nine.

This is a statue of the Little Rock Nine in front of the Capitol Building in Little Rock, Arkansas, and  a photo of Central High School as it is today.

 

Central High School is still a working high school.  There is a great Civil Rights Museum run by the National Park Service across the street from it.  It is free of charge.

LORRAINE MOTEL

(Memphis, Tennessee)

 

The Lorraine Motel (now The National Civil Rights Museum) in Memphis, Tennessee, was the assassination site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on April 4, 1968.

Below are photographs of the Lorraine Motel (unchanged since the day Dr. King was assassinated), and the balcony by room 306, the site of Dr. King's murder.  His Cadillacs are still parked in front of the motel.  This is probably the best Civil Rights Museum I have ever been in.

Civil Rights Museum website:  http://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/