Bookable
An Apollonaut travel guide
The place behind the detail.
A motel for Black travellers, the place where Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and a national museum offer several ways into the history kept on Mulberry Street.
On this page
The Lorraine
Walter Bailey bought the building in 1945 and ran it as the Lorraine, serving Black guests during segregation. After 1964 he expanded it as the Lorraine Motel.
Musicians recording at Stax Records in the 1960s were among its guests.
April 1968
Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on the balcony outside Room 306 on 4 April 1968 and died about an hour later. A wreath marks the place on the balcony today.
The museum presents this history factually, as part of the wider story of the civil rights movement.
A national museum
The National Civil Rights Museum opened at the Lorraine on 28 September 1991, reopened after renovation in April 2014 and became a Smithsonian Affiliate in 2016.
This history belongs to the place and the people who shaped it. The History page offers a longer introduction, and the timeline gives a short route through selected milestones.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
Links lead to the original publishers.
