Your tour reaches the National Civil Rights Museum, built around the Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The museum traces the full arc of the American civil rights movement, from the origins of slavery through the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike. Inside, you can sit in a replica of the Rosa Parks bus, stand in a reconstruction of a lunch counter, and walk through the jail cell where Dr. King wrote his 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' on the margins of a newspaper.
The exhibits are immersive and unflinching — they do not spare you the violence, the hatred, or the courage it took to face both. This museum opened in 1991 and has since become one of the most important historical institutions in the country. What began as the scene of an assassination has been transformed into a monument to the movement that Dr. King gave his life for.
Take your time here. This place demands it.