I Saw Where Martin Luther King Was Assassinated, and All I Got Was This T-Shirt

The complementary hotel Bible was close to the bed, but the ashtray was closer; overflowing with cigarettes smoked down to the butt. When he finally walked onto the balcony, he was shot dead by a man in a nicer hotel room, a damned horrible place.

Room 306 at the Loraine Motel, Memphis Tennessee. Very few white people seem to come here. Where a great man spent his final moments, and where a movement died. This place never recovered, and neither did our culture.

It was summer. I was bored. With no real plan in mind, I got in my car one night and just drove. In the morning I found myself at a mansion in Memphis called Graceland where a white man who made millions of dollars singing like a black man died on the toilet.

It cost twenty-five dollars to get in and look at his cheesy furniture. For an extra fifteen bucks, a tour of his private jet could be arranged. Eight dollars could buy a replica of his signature shades. Pictures, posters, snow bubbles, key chains, Christmas ornaments, books and DVDs could be and would be bought all day long at the obligatory gift shop.

All the dorks in America with a few bucks to spare come here at least once in their lives; pink foam visors and Bermuda shorts, Winnebago’s and cowboy hats, an army of Swedes in minivans. Why do we come here? To worship the White Negro.

Suddenly, it hit me: Elvis Presley did as much for Civil Rights as Martin Luther King Jr. Elvis brought black music into white homes and thereby bridged the gap between separate cultures. Black kids and white kids at the same places, enjoying the same thing. That’s why Rock music was so dangerous, and so hated. Civil Rights and the Sexual Revolution can all be traced to this boy from Mississippi, singing the blues and shaking his butt on a new appliance called the television.

But that all changed. Butts shake on TV all day and all night, and the only black people I see at Graceland are sweeping the floor. For a dead guy he employs a lot of people, but there aren’t any cultures being bridged, just a bunch of junk being sold.

I leave the mansion and drive across town, through the slums. This place is insane, the perfect spot for an ambush. All hand painted signs, crumbling in the sun. It hasn’t changed since the riots of the 1950’s, buildings are still burned out. If a battle for Civil Rights was won here, I sure can’t tell it by driving down the street. In fact, I feel like stepping on the gas and getting out of here.

A wreath of flowers hangs on the balcony above a removed block of concrete where King bled to death. People take family portraits at the murder scene; at least the black kids seem to have a sense of what happened here, but beyond “I have a dream” what do most of us really know about this man and his struggle? It was once our struggle.

The Civil Rights movement was not just about black people and Rock and Roll was not just for white kids. The problem was and is more complicated than simple black and white. The problem of equality and dignity crosses racial lines and even national barriers.

King fought against the war in Vietnam, and now a child in Vietnam sewed the swoop on to my Nike shoes I wear so proudly. Shoppers pay a hundred dollars for a pair of shoes a child was paid a penny to make, but never think of it as a Civil Rights issue. Instead we talk about Justin Bieber’s new haircut. That’s what happened to Rock and Roll. Exploited child labor and celebrity pop stars are the rights people fought and died for.

I was there for two hours before two other white people showed up, looking at old Ku Klux Klan robes, the burned-out remains of the Freedom Rider’s bus, and the seat where Rosa Parks was too damn tired to move from.

The white boy sat on the lawn next to his girlfriend and began to cry, loudly, openly, publicly. I guess the white boy wants to be seen crying at this spot, expressing sorrow at, you know, whatever. College age wanna-be do-gooders, wearing their sympathies on their sleeves, and t-shirts, hats, bumper stickers, and lunch pails.

I’m no better. I can’t even bring myself to cry, and mock those who do. The end result is the same; a bunch of impotent spectators and the ruins of a great man amidst an on-going war against stupidity that we seem to be losing. It’s worth crying about, certainly, but it is also worth doing something about. I just wish I knew what that something might feel like. I bought a t-shirt.

Rock and Roll was as dangerous and exciting the Civil Rights struggle, but these movements have lost their relevance and have not been replaced. Memphis is where Rock and Roll was born, and where Civil Rights died. It took Rock a little longer to pass away, but it did, bloated and constipated in a rhinestone jumpsuit. Hung on a wall to be looked at, but not participated in.

I went to where Martin Luther King died, and bought a t-shirt at the gift shop. I don’t know what I should have done instead, and that is what really troubles me.

It’s a Civil Rights Museum because it’s no longer a movement.