GRACELAND, home of Elvis Presley, a man who was truly a Vision of America. The mansion itself was decorated by Elvis, with tacky 1970s decor including green shag carpet on many of the ceilings. We saw hundreds of gold records and music awards, and dozens of his white suits.
This was my favorite room, with the stained glass peacocks.
And of course, Elvis' Cadillac (that he bought for his mama) was a delight. When my kids were little I used to tell them, "Kids, Elvis bought his Mama a Cadillac. Elvis loved his Mama. Do you love your Mama?"
Elvis bought Graceland in 1957 the same year that Little Rock Central High School was integrated. What did Elvis do, as a white southerner, during this time? What did he believe? I had heard a rumor that he was racist, but after doing some research, I don't think he was (at least not in the way that a lot of people were). Elvis was a white man singing "black" music. Many historians argue that Elvis helped blues and soul and motown music to get airtime by "white" radio stations. He grew up as a poor southerner, listening with fascination to black musicians. His first record had "That's All Right Mama" on the B side. He listened to the "colored" station in Memphis, and attended its fundraisers after he became a celebrity (often he was the only white guy at the event). He was friends with BB King and went to Beale Street to listen to him. He was REALLY good friends with James Brown, who was apparently so broken up when Elvis died that he just sat in the corner and cried during the viewing of the body at Graceland. I found a couple on interesting articles about Elvis and civil rights/racism that I will put links to here:
Like Elvis, Graceland was a Vision of America: tacky, overpriced, a little bit depressing, super popular, full of souvenirs made in China and fatty food. A very important place of pilgrimage! Elvis died of binge eating, diet pills and crash dieting; he alternated between eating huge fatty cheeseburgers and trying to fast and eat only jello, while taking diet pills. It was a pretty sad ending for someone who had been such an iconic and talented performer. I prefer to remember Elvis not as the fat guy in the white suit, but as the young, energetic and amazingly sexy dude from the movies, especially Viva Las Vegas with Ann Margret. Can you tell from the clip below that they were having a torrid affair? I sure can!
Also like Elvis, we went to Beale Street that night, to listen to fantastic blues music and eat fried catfish, red beans and rice, hush puppies, and so on.
Beale street is the most "iconic street in America" according to USA Today, and it definitely lived up to its name. I really felt like I was in Memphis! The band played Muddy Waters, Wilson Pickett, and everything you would want them to play. And really well.
On Saturday, we spent pretty much all day at the newly re-opened and remodeled National Civil Rights Museum. It is located at the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King was shot in April of 1968.
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| Please don't think I'm shallow, but here is Dr King's fine Cadillac |
The museum was great, except for the really short cords they had installed on the audio listening devices. It took you through the entire American Civil Rights movement, with huge rooms and interactive displays for each of the major events/places, like the violence in Birmingham, the school integration struggles (it had a whole exhibit about the integration of Ole Miss, and how the governor personally blocked the way to the registration office when James Meredith tried to enter. Orval Faubus didn't even do that. President Kennedy had to send federal troops down to assist him in registering. For the March on Washington, you could pretend you were standing in the crowd, and press buttons to hear the various amazing speakers, although you did have to crouch down a little bit because the audio cords were so short.
In case you think everything is peachy today, an incident took place just last month in which three 19 year old freshmen put a noose and a Confederate flag on the James Meredith statue that stands on the University of Mississippi campus.
Something else I learned at the museum: Tony Bennett was among the singers who went down for an impromptu performance on the third day of the Selma-Montgomery march. I was pretty impressed by that, since I think of it more as a sort of Peter, Paul and Mary type thing to do. But good old Tony Bennett. Here's a little clip of an interview I found with him and Harry Belafonte.
I don't know why Elvis didn't go with them! But he did do things like attend "colored day" at the county fair, which I guess is doing something in his own way. He did it his way.
Standing at the spot where Dr. King died was, of course, very meaningful, but it didn't have the same emotional impact for me as the other day when I was at Central High School. There were hundreds of people milling about, taking photos, talking and laughing, pointing at the spot where James Earl Ray stood (you can also go across the street and see where he was and read all about the manhunt, the various conspiracy theories etc.) that it was just...what it was. But it did get me really eager to visit the actual sites of these struggles, like Birmingham (where the KKK especially enjoyed blowing up buildings, churches and children) and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which is now a national historic landmark with all kinds of spots to stop along the way. We are on our way to Mississippi today, a state where you could be killed for registering to vote, or helping people to register, not so long ago, to visit the place where a 14 year old boy named Emmett Till died.
We walked back to our hotel along the muddy Mississippi river.
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