I started off my day with the noise of a vibrating alarm. It was sometime around 7 am, and I had an hour left of sleep before my alarm, but I couldn't drift back to sleep so I just got up and went to take a shower. It was really nice to take my day slowly though and give myself the time I needed to get ready!
We left for the National Civil Rights Museum around 8:30, with each car making their own pit stops along the way. We got to the Lorraine Motel in cold, drizzly rain, which really set and fit the mood as I walked along the entrance sidewalk and saw the memorial and wreath commemorating the location of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's assassination. It was different than I expected. First off, I didn't realize he was only on the second floor? I'd always imagined a really tall building with a balcony, similar to the one Prince William and Duchess Kate waved to everyone off of on their wedding day? But it was only two stories and a very normal-looking motel, similar to any that you would find in Canton along the highway.
We were introduced to the museum by a fantastic and very knowledgeable guide, and slowly made our way through the exhibits. It was a very educational pathway, filled with flakjdlkfjlk
Right after the motel, we skrrted over to Central BBQ and had some reallll good BBQ. Some real comfort food that definitely made me sleepy afterward. Also was hit on while I was there but I didn't realize? Me being the partially deaf dumbass I am--the cashier asked where I was from, and when I said Michigan, he said he was looking for a Michigan girl to date, long-distance relationship, he'd make it work. I didn't really hear him so laughed and nodded and said "yeahhhahaha" and then he was like, "I was talking about you girl but you didn't realize so it's all good" and I was like "ohhhh ahahaha yeah I was thinking of some girls I could set you up with you know ahaha I didn't realize you meant me ahaha" and walked away, surprisingly unawkardly! And non-uncomfortably. If that makes sense. Like usually I would be v uncomfortable in a situation like that, but it somehow wasn't. I'm really hoping that it was just because I really didn't feel harassed or sexualized, and not because I was seen as an attractive (or at least flirtable) female ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
After lunch and booking the escape room (Grizzliessss here we come!), we went to the second part of the National Civil Rights Museum: the boarding house where James Earl Ray allegedly shot MLK. I say allegedly because of the whole exhibit in the museum on the conspiracy theories behind others who could've done it, including his close friends and colleagues, the government, political groups, the like. There was a lot of evidence pointing to other people/not incriminating Ray that made the theories very plausible. However, simply walking by the bathroom window, seeing the clear view of the second floor balcony in front of Room 306 out of it, made me nauseous. The reality of it all--the sudden sense of history alive and kicking right in front of me, with the two buildings that I stood in actually being the physical locations of this horrific event, really hit. It was a similar feeling when I walked by the evidence exhibit, which held actually pieces of evidence released from the FBI's case, including the weapon, the cloth it was wrapped in, Ray's shorts and hairbrush that he left in his room, and the actual bullet that killed MLK. I was shaking and feeling slightly queasy.
I felt that way earlier in the museum too in the exhibit with the statues of slaves being held captive in the Middle Passage, complete with sounds of a rocking boat, shackles moving barely in the tight captivity they were kept in, the cries of a woman and the coughs of the ill. Again, getting hit with the reality of the cruelties that were endured by the slaves really impacted me physically. I don't think I would ever survive such a journey
No comments:
Post a Comment