Memphis, Tennessee and onward
By Tyler
We were grateful for my friend Nan’s mother’s offer of hospitality as we passed through Memphis after a long days drive across the state of Tennessee. Finally we have a day to relax and take in the breadth and depth of our nation’s history.
I was not prepared for the power of standing at the site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s last minutes while looking in at his motel room left as it was at the time of his death. The remarkable history, photos, videotapes, audiotapes, personal and deeply political and spiritual stories held and honored in the museum, demand a much longer visit in addition to ongoing reflection and action. Talia and Sabina experienced first hand what it was like to be yelled at to sit in the back of the bus and then threatened with police intervention. An important reminder that it was just over 40 years ago that James Meredith had to escorted by the National Guard to attend the University of Mississippi as the first black student.
In the ninety plus degree heat we set off for Clarksville, Mississippi and the Blues Museum where I laid my eyes on Lucille, B.B. Kings guitar and watched lengthy footage of Muddy Waters life. After driving through mile upon mile of cotton fields we camped outside of Natchez, Mississippi, the heart of the antebellum south. We learned the following day at the African American Cultural Museum that there is a movement afoot to rename the Natchez State Park to honor the gifted author Richard Wright as he was born on that land, son of a sharecropper. The brutal history of slavery and the trail of tears were never far from our car conversations and consciousness on those southern roads.
Talia, Sabina and Daniel were the brave ones to swim in a Louisiana bayou as we made our way west to Texas while listening to Lucinda Williams sing about “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”. Later that day we watched a really ugly alligator skulk about in the muck before our last leg to Houston. I was really glad the gator was behind a fence and we were on what appeared to be an “alligator blind”. Houston and Daniel’s generous cousins provided us with a sky-high view of the city, an amazing bird’s nest and place to regroup - an extra day to prepare ourselves for Schlitterbaum understood, in those parts, to be the biggest waterpark the world has seen (nothing’s small in Texas). The circular tidal wave was body bumpercar heaven and like an addiction for Talia and Sabina. That eve we pushed off from the parking lot as the kids reported it was the best day yet of the road trip.
By Tyler
We were grateful for my friend Nan’s mother’s offer of hospitality as we passed through Memphis after a long days drive across the state of Tennessee. Finally we have a day to relax and take in the breadth and depth of our nation’s history.
I was not prepared for the power of standing at the site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s last minutes while looking in at his motel room left as it was at the time of his death. The remarkable history, photos, videotapes, audiotapes, personal and deeply political and spiritual stories held and honored in the museum, demand a much longer visit in addition to ongoing reflection and action. Talia and Sabina experienced first hand what it was like to be yelled at to sit in the back of the bus and then threatened with police intervention. An important reminder that it was just over 40 years ago that James Meredith had to escorted by the National Guard to attend the University of Mississippi as the first black student.
In the ninety plus degree heat we set off for Clarksville, Mississippi and the Blues Museum where I laid my eyes on Lucille, B.B. Kings guitar and watched lengthy footage of Muddy Waters life. After driving through mile upon mile of cotton fields we camped outside of Natchez, Mississippi, the heart of the antebellum south. We learned the following day at the African American Cultural Museum that there is a movement afoot to rename the Natchez State Park to honor the gifted author Richard Wright as he was born on that land, son of a sharecropper. The brutal history of slavery and the trail of tears were never far from our car conversations and consciousness on those southern roads.
Talia, Sabina and Daniel were the brave ones to swim in a Louisiana bayou as we made our way west to Texas while listening to Lucinda Williams sing about “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”. Later that day we watched a really ugly alligator skulk about in the muck before our last leg to Houston. I was really glad the gator was behind a fence and we were on what appeared to be an “alligator blind”. Houston and Daniel’s generous cousins provided us with a sky-high view of the city, an amazing bird’s nest and place to regroup - an extra day to prepare ourselves for Schlitterbaum understood, in those parts, to be the biggest waterpark the world has seen (nothing’s small in Texas). The circular tidal wave was body bumpercar heaven and like an addiction for Talia and Sabina. That eve we pushed off from the parking lot as the kids reported it was the best day yet of the road trip.
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