I am a man. I am a man. I am a man. Those words blaze out from signs, hundreds of them, held high by a crowd of black men -- an ocean of resolve flowing deep into the photo. This single picture, hanging at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, captures the calm, powerful truth at the heart of the movement.
The building that houses it, though, was a scene of violence. It's a former boarding house, annexed during the museum's 2002 expansion. I hop an elevator to the top floor, stepping out to find a seedy hotel room with a broken-down bed and sad, saggy furniture. A glance away is the grubby bathroom where James Earl Ray allegedly lurked to fire the shot that killed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The rooms are re-creations, sleaze perfectly captured and encased in plexiglass walls. But what chills my spine is looking out the window and across the street to the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, where King stood when he was gunned down. Suddenly, I am looking through Ray's eyes.
The Lorraine Motel -- the museum's main building -- sits like a retro-chic time capsule from the 1960s, with turquoise doors and a jazzy, boomerang sign. I've been inside, though. Seen Room 306, where King stayed, with its half-drunk cups of coffee, crumpled napkins, stubbed-out cigarettes. And I've witnessed the spot where he fell in 1968, where a hunk of bloody concrete was later jimmied out of the balcony. The bittersweet soundtrack for these sights, "Precious Lord" performed by Mahalia Jackson, hangs thick in the air.
The museum designers were clever. Behind the Lorraine's preserved facade, the entire history of the civil rights movement crescendos to that balcony. The boarding house is a coda, and its exhibits that reveal Ray's background, trace his flight and explore tantalizing conspiracy theories swirling around the assassination are respectfully distanced from the movement's struggles.
And what struggles. The story starts in the slave era and unfurls through the Civil War, early civil rights acts and modern times -- including sit-ins, freedom rides, marches and landmark court decisions.
I learn about Brown v. Board of Education, the movement's first major legal victory, handed down 50 years ago this month (May 17, 1954). In it, the Supreme Court unanimously outlawed racial segregation in public schools, denying the concept of "separate but equal." A young Thurgood Marshall won the case, then went on to become a Supreme Court justice.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks's refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man. I climb aboard a real Montgomery, Ala., bus where a neat, matronly sculpture of Parks sits steadfast while my audio guide headset spins her story. Though the rest of the bus seats are empty in this exhibit, I don't sit down. It seems more appropriate to stand in her presence.
A dime store lunch counter is the scene of a student sit-in exhibit, with more of the life-size figures perched on stools. A couple of thugs taunt them from behind. Projected archival footage shows an actual sit-in that erupted into violence. It's startling that the figures in these exhibits -- no matter the race -- are light gray, an interesting decision to ignore color.
I flick off my audio guide and study one of many timelines that snake along the walls. I think about how fast some of us have become complacent, how we think we have all the answers when it comes to freedom.
I examine an exhibit of an actual burned and twisted Greyhound bus, representing the trip seven blacks and six whites took in 1961 to protest illegal segregation. They ended up beaten and arrested, the bus firebombed. Later, a string of photos captures the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., where 600 peaceful marchers were tear-gassed.
The museum also documents hard-won change. The Civil Rights Act, 40 years old this year, banned discrimination in public places, required equal employment and addressed voting inequities. But with issues like affirmative action still making news, the debate -- some would say the struggle -- continues.
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Somewhere in Memphis, a white girl stands in a recording booth belting out "I'll Take You There," accompanied by the Staple Singers. It isn't pretty.
I am that white girl. And I am visiting the new Stax Museum of American Soul Music.
You may not instantly recognize the Stax record label, but no doubt you'll recognize Stax artists, such as Otis Redding, Booker T. & the MG's, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers. Or Stax-produced songs, such as "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," "Theme from Shaft," "Hold On, I'm Comin'" and "Soul Man."
The Stax Recording Co., located in a Memphis neighborhood known as Soulsville, USA, closed its doors in 1975, snarled in legal battles, after producing almost 800 singles and 300 albums. By 1999, the only remnant was a commemorative plaque stuck in a vacant lot.
The Stax museum opened in May, transforming that lot into more than 17,000 square feet of exhibition space, plus a music academy to nurture inner-city youth. The museum traces the roots of soul from its early beginnings in gospel, blues and spiritual music, and is packed with memorabilia from the Stax studio and its artists.
One of the most evocative exhibits is the actual interior of Hoopers Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1906; one of the most engaging is a dance floor, set among the exhibits, that invites museum-goers to get down to big-screen music videos ("Soul Train" was blasting when I visited).
Other highlights are Hayes's peacock-blue Cadillac with gold-plated trim and a refrigerated bar; outfits worn by a number of artists (look for the patchwork platform boots sported by Booker T. & the MG's); and a re-created studio, control room and tape library.
More than 2,000 artifacts have been pulled together to tell the story of soul, but some of the best storytellers are the artists and studio employees themselves, presented in an introductory video and via monitors positioned throughout the exhibits. Wilson Pickett tells how his fascination with the "midnight hour" turned into a hit song, and you can also hear how a tardy band member calling, "Hold on, I'm comin'!" spawned another hit for Sam & Dave.
Stax was a thoroughly integrated business. Founded by white siblings Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton (the name comes from the first two letters of their last names) in an era when segregation was very much alive in the South, Stax boasted African American executives and partners, and many of their top groups combined blacks and whites to create a unique sound.
Axton ran a retail record store attached to the studio, which the museum replicates as its gift shop, including the aforementioned recording booth. As Booker T. Jones said, it "was like having a library right next to the studio." Axton would let local kids listen to records and, in turn, they gave feedback on new tracks fresh from the Stax studio. Plenty of new artists were discovered hanging out in the store, too.
But, within a short space of time, Martin Luther King was assassinated, top artist Redding died in a plane crash and Stewart discovered that he had signed away the studio's master tapes in a deal with Atlantic Music. Although Stax held on for a few more years, it eventually fell into bankruptcy.
While the museum's aim is to tell the broad story of American soul, encompassing both the South and the North (think Motown), the rise and fall of Stax is the most compelling tale of all -- worthy of its very own soul tune.
And I will definitely not be singing it.
© 2003 & 2004 Gayle Keck
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These two stories appeared in the Washington Post travel section
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