Riding the local trolley (built in the 1970's)
Beignet Cafe & Blues Bar
Mardi Gras Decor greets you when you walk inside
Jon ordered biscuits and gravy and I ordered their famous beignets with a side of sausage and eggs. Biscuits were slightly hard but Jon liked this and he loved the gravy. There were semi-generous portions of sausage in it which he also likes although the sausage chunks the better in "biscuits and gravy" is his motto. The beignets were everything I expected them to be...puffy, "donuty", sugary, warm goodness that melted in your mouth.
Next we went for a walk back up Main street towards our hotel to see a few sights before trying to get into our hotel again. We settled on the National Civil Rights Museum as we saw from the trolley on the way to breakfast. It was a little store front, corner plot off of Main Street so we expected a small museum. When we walked in we were surprised to find out that this was the end of the road and we needed to turn the corner to the left and walk down one block to get to the entrance. So we began the trek, thinking to myself: this is a weird layout for a museum. As we approached the museum this is what we saw...
"Ohmagaw!" I exclaimed. It was the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on April 4 in 1968. The cars are replicas of the exact cars sitting outside the motel when he was shot. The wreath is in memorial to him and is the exact place he was standing when he was shot. Off to the right in the picture is a plaque memorializing that day forever. Here is a close up picture of that plaque.
As we entered the museum, we realized it was much bigger than we assumed at first. There were audio tours so we chose to do that. Then there was a video playing (about 30 minutes long but we didn't care) and we watched that. Cried, was inspired, was glad to have decided to watch the video and was glad we happened upon such a treasure of a museum. The entrance had an amazing scultpure made by a Swedish man from Texas! Evidently 223 entries came in representing 20 or so countries for this juried contest. This man one and here is what he made for the museum's lobby.
Movement to Overcome: Brass sculpture, notice the figures all over it, climbing up.
The museumn covers the movement from slavery to 1968. Then you walk across the street and visit the sniper's post later uncovered by an FBI investigation. The building we originially visited (that was the end of the museum tour) is the ground floor of the building next to the building the sniper set up post in. So there were three more floors of exhibits talking about the investigation into MLK's death, the conspiracy theories surrounding his death, a memorial to other's who've paid the ultimate price for peace, love and justice and a wall of photos of past recipients and honorary recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Museum's replica of the same view the sniper had on that fateful day!
Memorial to other's who have been assasinated for the cause of justice like Gandhi, other civil rights movement leaders and workers, Harvey Milk, etc.
If you want to go:
Admission is $15 (plus $2 for the audio tour).
*Admission is buy one get one if you use a Delta Sky Miles American Express credit card .
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