The history of Memphis
On Mulberry Street in Memphis stands the ground of the old Lorraine Motel, opened in 1925 as the whites-only Windsor Hotel, renamed in 1945 by its new owner Walter Bailey, and marked forever by the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 before its rebirth as the National Civil Rights Museum.
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis stands around the old Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead on the balcony outside Room 306 on April 4, 1968. Built as the whites-only Windsor Hotel in 1925, the property was bought in 1945 by Walter Bailey, who renamed it for his wife Loree before it became a civil rights landmark.
A whites-only hotel became a refuge for Black travellers
The National Civil Rights Museum is a museum built around the old Lorraine Motel at Mulberry Street in Memphis. The building began life in 1925 as the Windsor Hotel, a small sixteen-room establishment for white guests only. It later traded under the name the Marquette Hotel through the 1930s and into the 1940s.
In 1945, Walter Bailey, an African American businessman, bought the hotel. Walter Bailey renamed it the Lorraine, after his wife Loree and the song "Sweet Lorraine." Under segregation, the Lorraine became a rare safe place for Black travelers in Memphis. Starting in 1952, it appeared in the Green Book, the guide that listed hotels and businesses willing to serve African American guests. Jazz musicians Cab Calloway and Count Basie stayed there, and later Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, and Nat King Cole came through its doors. Stax Records artists, including Isaac Hayes, gathered by its pool. Bailey expanded the property through the 1950s and 1960s, adding a second floor and drive-up motel rooms, turning the old hotel into the Lorraine Motel.
King was shot dead on the Lorraine's balcony
Martin Luther King Jr. Came to Memphis that April to support striking sanitation workers. He checked into Room 306 at the Lorraine with Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young, and at 6:01 p.m. On April 4 he stepped onto the second-floor balcony outside his room. A rifle shot fired from a rooming house across the street struck him. He died an hour later at St. Joseph Hospital.
Loree Bailey, Walter's wife, collapsed with a stroke when she heard the shot. She died five days later. James Earl Ray was later convicted of the killing and sentenced to 99 years. Walter Bailey closed Room 306 to guests, keeping it as a shrine while running the rest of the motel until bankruptcy forced its sale in 1982.
The motel fell into disrepair after bankruptcy
After the sale, the Lorraine fell into disrepair. Reports from the time describe the building slipping into use as a brothel before a rescue effort began. A group called Save the Lorraine bought the building at auction in 1982 to stop it from going to foreclosure.
A foundation turned the motel into a museum
In 1984, organizers formally created the Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation to turn the old motel into a museum. The foundation bought the Lorraine itself in 1987, along with the rooming house across the street, the building James Earl Ray fired from. D'Army Bailey, a civil rights activist, author, and judge, led the project to build the museum.
The National Civil Rights Museum opened on July 4, 1991, with a formal dedication that September 28. Its exhibits trace the civil rights movement from the 1600s to the present day.
The museum expanded into the sniper's rooming house
In 2001 and 2002, the museum expanded into the Young and Morrow Building and the rooming house itself, opening the new wing on September 28, 2002. These are the buildings connected to the shooting: the rooming house held the sniper's position, and the Young and Morrow Building was where Ray reportedly confessed, before recanting. Ray's conviction still stands as the official record, though the King family and others have long questioned it.
The museum closed for major renovation and reopened in 2014 with new multimedia displays and short films. In 2016, it became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.
Room 306 remains preserved exactly as King left it
Room 306 is preserved as King left it, with his unmade bed and belongings still in place. The museum holds about 260 artifacts and more than 40 films, and in 2018 the Lorraine Motel was named part of the African American Civil Rights Network, a National Park Service program.
A few streets over, the ground around Mulberry Street carried its own violence long before 1968. In 1919, a man named R. J. Smith, known as Blackie, shot and killed Jessee Campbell at the carnival grounds on this street. Neither death is marked today, but both were recorded in the same city where, decades later, the nation's most famous civil rights leader would be killed a few doors away.
The Lorraine Motel's sign and balcony still stand over Mulberry Street, now the entrance to the museum built around King's death.
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