Pride, Pain Mix at Dedication of Rights Museum

Voicing a mixture of pride, pain, hope and anger, thousands of civil rights advocates and celebrities gathered Thursday to dedicate the National Civil Rights Museum, a collection of exhibits that provide a road map of the bloody rights struggle.

Dedication ceremonies culminated almost a week of events, including symposiums and a black-tie banquet, during which the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was slain, was transformed from a place of infamy to a 10,000-square-foot museum that officials say will make up the first full documentation of the nation’s civil rights movement.

Amid relentless heat and a few raindrops, a racially mixed crowd in the museum’s courtyard heard speeches from the governor, the mayor, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and other nationally known civil rights activists and actors Morgan Freeman, Cybill Shepherd and Blair Underwood. As a ribbon was cut, white doves symbolizing peace were released to fly toward an overcast sky.

Although the day’s dominant theme centered on the healing spirit that the museum symbolizes, and the hope that Memphis finally will lose its stigma and gain a positive image, there was also some bitterness directed at President Bush and his civil rights policies, as several speakers noted that he did not attend the ceremony.

Jackson, who was with King, the world’s best known civil rights leader, on the motel balcony when King was shot by James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968, said, “It’s tough to be here . . . the wound is still open. There’s a lot of trauma here.” He added, “The President should have been here.”

Later, in an interview, Jackson bitterly called Bush “the most anti-civil-rights President of our times. He has no sense of healing. He’s manipulative, vetoed the civil rights bill (of 1990) and threatens to veto another.”

Jackson noted that Bush has called the legislation a “quota bill,” while advocates say it will allow women and minority members to seek compensation for suffering bias in the workplace. He said that Bush “wants to use quotas in a way that would give the impression that whites are hosts and blacks and browns are parasites.”

“His absence is a statement, a consistent statement.”

Similarly, Benjamin L. Hooks, executive director of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said: “We’re trying to do something worthwhile, move forward, and I think he should have been here to symbolize that.”

For local officials, especially whites, the museum represents a cleanser that may wipe off the tarnish that has covered Memphis for the 23 years since King was assassinated here.

“This is a day of celebration in our city, and we ought to be proud of it!” shouted Shelby County Mayor William Morris.

He called the museum “proof that the people of Memphis can join hands, that out of old wounds can come unity, and that we can rise above the past and reach together for a bright future.”

Not everybody around here supports the museum, which will remain open this week, then close until work on it is completed. It is expected to reopen at the end of August.

Even as it was being dedicated, Jacqueline Smith, a black woman who used to work as a desk clerk at the Lorraine, continued her protest against the $9.2-million facility. Thursday, she said, was the 1,270th day that she has passed out literature against the project.

“They are seeking gentrification of this area,” she said angrily. “I think the $9 million could have been better spent to help the needy” by establishing a free city college and senior citizens center. Smith vowed to continue her vigil “as long as I possibly can.”

Although sensitive to such criticism, supporters defended the need for the museum.

D’Army Bailey, a state circuit court judge and the museum foundation’s president, said it is needed to ensure that young people do not take for granted the civil rights gains of the past that they enjoy today.

The Rev. Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said the museum is not designed for “a sentimental journey” but rather as “a launching pad” toward renewed vigor in the civil rights community.

The exhibits are powerful reminders of the battles over rights during the 1950s and 1960s.

Among them is a yellow, green and white bus, both its doors open--recalling the Montgomery bus boycott that began in 1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. Parks, 78, attended the ceremony Thursday.

Visitors who “ride” in the front seats of the bus will hear a voice demanding that they get up and move to the rear.

Upstairs are the two rooms that King and his entourage occupied the day he was shot, the day after he had delivered his “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech while here to support striking garbage workers.

An orange garbage truck, with lifelike figures carrying placards reading “I Am a Man,” is included in the exhibit.

The room where King had stayed is on exhibit just as it was, with a peach bedspread, gold carpeting, a television set. Gazing at it, two young college students, Edward Stanton III and Robert White II, both black, sighed heavily and shook their heads.

“It’s really moving,” said White, “really touching. For all of us.”

For many of the first visitors to the museum, the pain is palpable. Canary Williams, a third-grade teacher here, looked at the room, shuddered and said: “Lord, have mercy. It brings back those days. It just gets to your gut. It makes you want to cry.”