National Civil Rights Museum Memphis

It was a relatively short drive to Memphis (230KM) where I checked into the Graceland RV Park for two nights.  The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis is located at the Lorraine Motel where Dr  Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4th 1968. (This was a year before we came to Canada and I would have been working at Worthing Hospital at the time).
The museum provides a reminder of the history of African Americans. Slaving in America from 1619-1861. The thirteenth amendment of the American Constitution in 1865 during the Civil War which abolished slavery.  The fifteenth amendment in 1870 that declared that rights to vote not be denied on account of race. In spite of this there was continuous discrimination and the rise of the Klu Klux Klan which was formed on December 24th 1865 just after the end of the Civil War.  When Ulysses H. Grant was president there was an attempt at Reconstruction. The KKK members were mostly members of the defeated Confederate army.
The museum has exhibits on the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-1956) the 1960s student sit ins, the Freedom Riders (1961) and the Jim Crow Laws. Would recommend the museum to anyone visiting Memphis.

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