Crime and Fun in Memphis

By July this year there had been 100 murders in Memphis. Guns were used in most of these crimes. A person had been charged in only 43 of these cases. Some are referred to as interstate murders. The centre of Memphis is only 10 miles from the Mississippi state border and Arkansas is across the river, complicating jurisdictional issues and making it harder to solve these crimes.

In the downtown area the Blue Suede Brigade performs the dual function of hospitality and security. The brigadiers do not carry guns but have batons and communications equipment. They ride around on bicycles and Segways. Hotels shut their doors by 7pm allowing access with hotel keycards or an intercom, and have security patrols. We are careful where we walk and haven't had any concerns.

Tonight is bike night on Beale Street with 200+ motor cycles lining both sides of the street. This happens every Wednesday from June to September. Four police cars had surrounded a ute at Beale Street so it was all happening.

Downtown Memphis

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.

Day 32 - National Civil Rights Museum

We like Elvis but had no wish to visit Graceland. Instead we went to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King Junior was assassinated on 4 April 1968.

King was standing on the balcony outside room 306 where he regularly stayed when visiting Memphis. The white male sniper shot him from a bathroom window in a boarding house across the street. The motel continued to operate but by 1982 it went into foreclosure.

Money was raised to purchase the motel and develop the museum. Ten years ago the former boarding house was integrated into the museum. The strategy of turning the motel into a sacred place appears to have been very successful, and it has denied white supremacists a potential shrine.

The sniper escaped but was arrested in June trying to leave London Heathrow Airport on a forged Canadian passport carrying a loaded pistol. He pleaded guilty because a guilty verdict following a contested jury trial would have left him exposed to the death penalty. He was sentenced to 99 years, increased to 100 years after he briefly escaped from the penitentiary.

The extensive exhibition was well done but we were caught up in a large slow moving tour group. The guide was informative but talked too much and too fast. Her personal experience of overt segregation in the south was attending a Black only prom. Some high schools continue to avoid mixed race proms by parents and students organising private functions.

There was a special exhibition of works by Romane Beardon, an African American artist whose mother was a well known civil rights activist. He used different media but I preferred his screen prints.

Day 31 - Beale Street Memphis

After the ordinary breakfast included in our hotel package, we walked along a very quiet Beale Street. Eleven o'clock was a good time look at the buildings with hardly any people around and only one store open. The street is closed except for deliveries.

The Mississippi last flooded in May 2019. The Beale Street Landing is where the American Queen steamboat lands its passengers. In today's photo the mud stain can still be seen on the circular walkway. The second photo shows how high the river reached.

At the river end Beale Street passes under a railway bridge. I can only hope the old timber tressle bridge is strong enough to carry the next train we catch to Chicago. Amtrak owns and operates the trains, but Canadian Railways owns the tracks. Some sections between New Orleans and Memphis provided a very rough ride.

On the other side of the bridge there is a flood height gauge showing the 2011 flood peak just shy of 48 feet (near Anita's ankles).

Missing Phone Saga

Unusually our train arrived at Memphis half an hour early. We were relieved to see a couple of taxis waiting by the platform. A driver put our bags into the back of his car, started the engine for air conditioning, then walked off saying he would be back. We waited a few minutes and saw him direct a truck into position to refuel the train. I became suspicious and hopped out and took a photo of the number plate and rates written on the outside of the cab.

Our hotel is one kilometer from the station but the driver charged $18 so Anita gave him $20 allowing a $2 tip. He hadn't turned the meter on but based on the advertised rates our fare should not have exceeded $10 with tip.

It wasn't till we were inside our hotel room that I realised my phone was missing. We called the cab company but the driver said he hadn't found any phone. Anita called my number several times hoping someone might answer it. Finally I remembered that Anita's phone knows the location of my phone! We looked up the location using good old Google maps and it showed it was back at the station.

We called a different cab company and told the driver we wanted to go to the station and return to our hotel. Memphis has a high crime rate and we didn't want to be abandoned at the station at midnight.

Our second driver was very obliging trying to get to the location of my phone as displayed on Google maps, navigating road closures around the station. When we worked our way back to the platform we searched the ground and Anita called my phone hoping we would hear it ring. Voila! The phone was answered by an Amtrak employee. A young woman had handed in my phone after she found it on the ground. I must have dropped it getting back into the first cab. Mr Amtrak gave me back the phone after he finished locking up for the night. Such relief!

After all that running around the metered fare for the return journey was only $15, confirming we had been ripped off by driver number one. Naturally we happily handed over $20 to our very helpful driver number two!

Day 30 - Train from New Orleans to Memphis

This morning we had breakfast and lunch in our hotel in between packing. We travelled on the Amtrak City of New Orleans train known as CONO. As it is about a 9 hour trip we booked a Superliner Roomette in a double decker carriage - two seats facing each other with a picture window. The seats convert to the lower bed and the top bed folds down. Meals are included.

The first part of the journey was through the bayou. Anita thinks she saw two alligators where I saw logs - she is the one booked in for cataract surgery. Much of the time forest and undergrowth limit our views of the countryside. Our roomette is on the western side of the northbound train so we appreciate the cloud cover, except Anita thinks it is dark and spooky. She has watched too many movies involving train murders.

As we passed through Jackson I played Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash singing:

We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout, 
We've been talkin'  'bout Jackson ever since the fire went out, 
Yeah I'm goin' to Jackson, I'm gonna mess around, 
Look out Jackson town ... 

Beccy Cole and Adam Harvey do a great rendition of this classic.

Jackson is the capital of the state of Mississippi which is one of the poorest states of the Union. Most of our trip was through low lying land of Mississippi. We saw hundreds of damaged and abandoned buildings, probably dating back to 2005 when Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the state.

Day 29 - Riverwalk Mall

The heat has been oppressive so we succumbed to the air conditioning available at the Riverwalk Mall. Food options were limited to mostly junk at the food court. Instead we opted for the not much better Starbucks' offerings in the adjoining Hilton Hotel.

The blue dog featured in the sculpture garden is painted on the outside of the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street, in company with an alligator.

We managed the one kilometer walk on the shady side of Canal Street, and clocked up another five kilometers walking around the mall. That was a lot of walking to buy just one T-shirt! A cruise ship terminal connects to the mall and the Creole Queen paddle steamer was about to depart on a trip along the Mississippi River.

Fortunately an air conditioned streetcar was on time to take us back to our hotel to watch the men's final in the US Open. We had a dinner booking so left before the match was over, but it was still going when we returned to our hotel.

We had dinner at GW Fin, a seafood restaurant just around the corner from Bourbon Street. The food was lovely and it was a peaceful setting in contrast to the early evening noise on Bourbon.