The National Civil Rights Museum located in Memphis, Tennessee, is a privately owned complex of museums and historic buildings built around the former Lorraine Motel at 450 Mulberry Street where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
Major components of the complex on 4.14 acres include a museum and the Lorraine Motel and hotel buildings. The complex also includes the Young and Morrow Building at 422 Main Street, which was the site where James Earl Ray initially confessed (and later recanted) to shooting King. The complex additionally includes the Canipe’s Amusement Store at 418 Main Street. The store is next door to the rooming house where the alleged murder weapon, with Ray's fingerprints, was found. Included on the grounds is the brushy lot that stood between the rooming house and the motel.
The Museum traces the history of the Civil Rights Movement from the 17th century to the present.
The complex is owned by the nonprofit Lorraine Civil Rights Museum Foundation. It is located on the south edge of Downtown Memphis, Tennessee in what is now called the South Main Arts District and is about six blocks east of the Mississippi River.
Read more about National Civil Rights Museum: History, Controversy
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“Ignorance, forgetfulness, or contempt of the rights of man are the only causes of public misfortunes and of the corruption of governments.”
—French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed Aug. 1789, published Sept. 1791)
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“A fallen tree does not rise again.”
—Hawaiian saying no. 2412, ‘lelo No’Eau, collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui, Bishop Museum Press, Hawaii (1983)