theDIBB - Touring Tennessee: Day 4 Civil Rights, Guitars, Ducks and Redbirds

We all slept well and the Comfort Inn breakfast was good. We had decided not to bother with the car today, so once we were all ready, we set off to walk to the National Civil Rights Museum.

It wasn't a long walk and we enjoyed a fairly laid back stroll downtown. We like walking and it's a good way to see a city. We paused on the way to hang with Little Milton outside the Blues Hall of Fame.

The museum is housed in the Lorraine Motel which is where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. The wreath marks the spot where he was shot.

The museum starts with an exhibition on slavery in the US which is sobering and shocking in equal measure. Even though we knew that slavery had existed, seeing the impact on individual lives had quite an impact. We then moved on to watch a film about how black lives in the USA had been once slavery had been abolished and how poverty and discrimination had continued.

After the film, you are free to move through the museum which plots the history of the civil rights movement from the early 20th century right up to James Earl Ray's assassination of Dr King. There is a lot to read and take in and we were struck by how recent so much of this history is. There is a really moving exhibit on the work leading up to the 1954 judgement that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.

In another section, there is a recreation of the bus where Rosa Parks made her protest.

One of the rooms has a film showing Dr King's famous "I have a dream" speech which we stood and watched, feeling very moved by such powerful words.

The motel section finishes with a recreation of room 306, where Dr King was staying, and an account of the shooting. You then cross the street to the building where James Earl Ray took his shot for more information on the aftermath of the assassination and information on civil rights work since then.

It was quite profound to realise how recent all of this was - the civil rights battle is living memory to so many people and there is still a long way to go.

After the museum, we walked back to near Beale Street to visit the Gibson Guitar Factory. We booked onto the next tour and were invited to hang around in the shop until it was time to go. Paul was in his element!

The tour, led by the very laid back Kyle, was really interesting, even if you are not a massive guitar nerd! The guitars are all handmade with amazing precision and we all agree that the best job is the guy that gets to play each one to test it.

Then we broke it to Paul that we were not spending $5000 on a new Gibson for him. He took it quite well.

After the guitars, we were all really hungry. Fortunately, Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken wasn't too far away and as it was after the lunchtime rush, we didn't have to wait for a table. The menu is simple - it's fried chicken, so we didn't take long to order a tray of, guess what? Yep, fried chicken!

It was delicious - hot and tender and spicy - and a hush settled over the table as we stuffed our faces with lots and lots of chicken. Yum. Although we didn't really need a pudding, we did order a chocolate chess pie to go, mainly because we'd never eaten such a thing before.

Paul did the usual "Dad" thing of saying, "Don't get any pudding for me, I don't want any" etc. Then, once we were back at the hotel, he was diving in to eat it. :erm:

Back at the hotel, it was time for a quick swim before heading out again. We were meeting my sister, the lovely @katiebaz as they were also touring Tennessee and spending a few days in Memphis. We had arranged to meet at the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks and it was lovely see them all there.

(The ducks live on the roof in a penthouse and are escorted down to the lobby every day at 11.00. They then swim around the fountain and at 5.00pm the Duckmaster escorts them along the red carpet to the elevator to go back to their penthouse)

The duck parade was pretty cute and it was cool to see it.

They were staying across from the Peabody, so we went back to their hotel and had a couple of drinks, courtesy of the Manager's special :tongue:, and caught up on how our respective trips were going.

We had tickets for the Memphis Redbirds vs the Omaha Storm Chasers and it was only a short walk from the hotel.

Katie had got us front row seats and we had a great view of the game which was good fun.

Hannah even got to experience a ball park hotdog - as a novice meat eater, I'm not sure this was a totally enjoyable experience for her, but she managed! Somehow we missed the stall selling fried pies on a stick, which was a bit of a shame. Evan managed to catch a ball and later on, Daniel got one too, so both boys were pretty pleased with themselves. This is Evan's happy photo face ;)

We had a really lovely time and arranged to meet up to visit Sun Studios together the next day.