Beale Street, Stax, I AM a Man and the Lorraine Motel.
Robert Reed Church
Robert Reed Church was born enslaved in 1839 in Holly Springs, Mississippi. After the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 crashed land prices in Memphis, he bought property across the city and became known as the first African American millionaire in the South. For Black Memphians shut out of white facilities he built a public park, a playground, a concert hall and an auditorium, and in 1906 he co-founded Solvent Savings Bank, the first Black-owned bank in Memphis.
Beale Street
In the early 1900s many of Beale Street's clubs, restaurants and shops were owned by African Americans, and Church's Park stood near the corner of Fourth and Beale. W. C. Handy made the street the home of the blues, and a young B. B. King was billed as the Beale Street Blues Boy. Its stretch from Main to Fourth became a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and in 1977 an act of Congress declared Beale Street the Home of the Blues.
Soulsville
From a converted movie theater at 926 East McLemore Avenue in South Memphis, Stax Records helped create Southern soul. Booker T. and the M.G.'s were the house band on nearly every record made there from 1962 to about 1970, Otis Redding arrived in 1962, Isaac Hayes broke through with Hot Buttered Soul, and the Staple Singers moved from gospel to R&B. Since 2003 the Stax Museum of American Soul Music has stood on McLemore Avenue, and the Soulsville Foundation runs a music academy and charter school beside it.
I AM A Man
On February 12, 1968, after Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death in a garbage truck while sheltering from the rain, the city's sanitation workers went on strike under the slogan I AM a Man. Martin Luther King Jr. came to support them, and on April 3 he gave his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. The next day he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel. The strike ended on April 16 with union recognition and a pay rise.
Black Memphis Today
Since 1991 the Lorraine Motel has been the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, including an exhibit on the sanitation strike that brought King to Memphis. Black-owned barbecue spots, salons, studios and brands are part of everyday Memphis.
Shop Black-owned businesses in Memphis on CashBlack.
Photo Credits
Beale Street in Memphis. Photo: WillyBearden, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons The Stax Museum and Satellite Record Shop. Photo: Victor Chapa from Denton, USA, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons