CivilRightsMuseum.org is The website for the National Civil Rights Museum.
Title
National Civil Rights Museum
Description
The aftershock of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968 would plunge the Lorraine Motel, a small minority-owned business in the south-end of downtown Memphis, into a long and steep decline. The motel’s owner, Walter Lane Bailey kept a couple of rooms as a shrine to Dr. King and to Bailey’s wife, Lorraine, who died of a brain hemorrhage several hours after King was shot.
By 1982, the Lorraine Motel was a foreclosed property. A group of prominent Memphians, concerned that this historic site would be destroyed through continued neglect and indifference, formed the Martin Luther King Memorial Foundation to save the Lorraine. Using a design report by a former Smithsonian Institution, Benjamin Lawless, the Foundation started seeking funding for the nations’s first comprehensive exhibit chronicling America’s civil rights movement.
The Foundation raised $10,000, which brought a short option to buy the Lorraine; however, members of the Foundation were unable to raise the full contract price of $250,000. Fortunately, in December 1982, the Foundation was able to purchase the Lorraine at auction for $144,000. Of that amount, $69,000 came from the fundraising efforts of Foundation members. In addition, $25,000 was donated by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and $10,000 was donated by Lucky Hearts Cosmetics, a business located across the street from the Lorraine. The remaining $50,000 was loaned by Tri-State Bank and secured jointly by AFSCME and Lucky Hearts.
Contact
- National Civil Rights Museum
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- Memphis TN
- United States 38103
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- +1.9999999999
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