Summer 2007. The Adkins clan convened in Memphis for their annual reunion. Folks flew in from Cali, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Ohio. It was an opportunity to do something other than congregate on Friday for locally-catered cuisine and go our separate ways on Saturday. There was a black history tour planned. First stop: The National Civil Rights Museum. First distraction: a dreaded sister set up twenty feet away, claiming to be in protest for the last 19 years.
When the tour bus pulled in to the parking lot of the Museum, the tour guide insisted we only had 45 minutes to zip through the place and be back in time to head out to the restaurant which was catering our meal. An older relative didn't appreciate the patronizing tone of the tour guide and commenced to cursing her out... HBCU-style. And every Adkins in earshot reached into their pockets to offer their two cents. I, however, was zeroed in on the protester. I have intense radar for resistance and this dreaded sister was sending my radar into overdrive. Oh yeh, baby. There was a story behind the Civil Rights Museum and I wanted to know all.
I inched away from the commotion and over to the protester. A woman named Jacqueline Smith who was the last tenant to live in the Lorraine Motel before she was evicted so work could begin on building the Museum. That was nearly 20 years ago and Ms. Smith was still in protest. She believed, without waver, the funds used to build the Museum should have been used to supply housing and jobs to the neighborhood's poorer citizens. She believed Dr. King would not have been pleased. She called the Museum sacrilegious. And said she'd hold vigil as long as she could in order to make her point.
Now I've never been a fan of wax museums or happy exhibits where Plain Jane tour guides point out the chains used to shackle a five year old child. You know, stuff like that unnerves. But the truth Ms. Smith offered certainly gave me a lot to think about it in terms of... whose rights were sacrificed for the building of a museum.
So as I entered the Museum and walked into Room 307 of the Lorraine Motel, you know, to see where our country's beloved martyr was shot and murdered, I thought about Ms. Smith outside in 100 degree heat. And then I asked myself what was truly important there. Spending time with Dad and his clan, parading through a museum with some amazing exhibits and some cheesy ones too, or thinking about Ms. Smith and if she was the only one in Memphis truly carrying out King's Dream. Well, at least it was interesting to believe that SHE believed that to be true.
