After the assassination of Martin Luther King, rioting broke out in 100 cities across the USA including Memphis. White people had already started leaving Memphis because of the strike by Black sanitation workers, but the exodus accelerated. Shops were trashed and fires burned around the city. After the riots had ended the exodus was so dramatic there were more prison inmates than other people in the downtown area which has still not recovered. There are few shops and very little traffic.
Historic buildings in Main Street survived but I have never been in such an under populated city centre.
The Peabody Hotel has a very impressive interior. It has a quirky way of enticing people inside at 11am and 5pm for the duck march. This has been a tradition for decades. The ducks have an enclosure with ponds and shelter on the roof. At 11am they march across the roof into an elevator, then out to a fountain on the ground floor until 5pm when they march back.
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