Flop Eared Mule A Country Music Death Beast and Worker in the Dylan Industrial Complex | Sydney, Australia | Est. 2004

I've already shown some sights of the almost unmatched musical heritage of Memphis -- and I should do a Beale St post too soon -- but of course its significance goes beyond that. One place I was keen to visit was the National Civil Rights Museum, which is housed in the Lorraine Motel site of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The facade is maintained so you'll recognise it from the famous pictures taken by a news photographer who happened to be there, seconds after the shots. It is exactly the same, and quite a spinetingling moment to stand there.

Inside, the museum is extremely impressive. Note if you plan to visit, budget a lot of time - it's very wordy. And I mean that in a good way. (No photos allowed inside but you'll get a good look form the website.) The main section is laid out in a timeline leading up to the modern civil rights movement, with special exhibits on the major events of the movement of the 50s and 60s leading up stairs until you are standing next to MLK's room 306 and looking out the large window shown in the first picture, above. A lot of the timeline has extensive text accompanying artifacts and pictures and if you want to read it all and study the pics like me, it takes a while. The audio tour is also worth the extra couple of bucks. It's not all text, there are very well done reconstructions, such as the "Rosa Parks bus" which has an audio component inside which lets you know how long you have to move when a white person wants to sit down before they call the police. Videos show news footage of the time, the dogs and hoses and National Guards. The whole effect is quite remarkable, even if you are familiar with it all.

Over the road is the site of the hotel where James Earl Ray stayed and fired the shots, also part of the museum and chronicles the crime itself, the hunt for the killer and the aftermath. The room where the shots were fired is reconstructed from police photographs. It's behind glass but the window next to it gives basically the same view of the balcony of the Lorraine -- another hard to explain moment, as you see the assassin's view. Downstairs in this building they also have temporary exhibitions of other social justice struggles, one on Chile ended just before I was there.

In the gift shop I bought -- lol -- a Barack Obama colo(u)ring book and first family paper dolls set, and a fridge magnet.

I also got a book, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael K. Honey. The strike was the reason King was in Memphis at that time. I'm half way through and it is a fascinating account of labour history, of the relationship between the white union movement and the civil rights movement and the peculiar "plantation mentality" that governed Memphis even at that time. I'm half way through and MLK hasn't figured much but the cast of local and national union organisers, good old boy politicians, civil rights leaders and the put upon sanitation workers is fascinating enough.

So if you have the chance, highly recommended. There's a lot of music connected with these themes obviously, but I'll just pick a YouTube of one of my favourite Nina Simone songs.