I had one more spot in Memphis on my list that we had time to see this morning before leaving Tennessee.

National Civil Rights Museum

On April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot while standing on a balcony outside of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. This motel has been turned into a museum that has Smithsonian affiliation.

The museum currently has a special collection of Bayard Rustin items, a civil rights leader who was the chief organizer of the March on Washington. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in that room, but the rest of the museum could be photographed. “Rustin” is a really good movie about this leader that we watched on Netflix.

The first main room of the museum had history from 1619 with the first slaves being brought to Virginia. The monetary value of slavery was shown. Even the northern states were complicit in profiting from slave labor and creating our country’s foundational wealth.

The last major room was devoted to the sanitation strike which was the reason Dr. King was in Memphis when he was assassinated. Room 306 is set up as it was on April 4, 1968, and is a poignant place near the end of the tour to quietly reflect on the history told here.

Cotton Cotton Everywhere

Cotton harvest was fully underway in southeastern Missouri. The huge cotton bales were covered in colorful plastic, and we saw them in fields and on transport trucks as we traveled along I-55.

River Ridge Winery

Our evening stay was at a Harvest Host winery in Missouri, just south of Cape Girardeau. It’s on a long, winding, narrow road and has a restaurant menu as well as wine. They have lots of outdoor seating areas for events, but tonight we enjoyed a quiet evening with a delicious supper, wine, and a mookie for dessert. An excellent place to stay.