daily special

Irony

It's a museum, an anathema in Memphis. The fire extinguisher, the first response, before the hoses are needed, hangs around the corner. A wreath hangs on the rail in front of the lime green door to room #306. It is the lodge, time, economic disparity and racial disproportion has shrunk. In 1945 it was called the Marquette Hotel. That year it was was purchased by Walter Bailey who named it for his wife Loree. The hotel has its roots in the song “Sweet Lorrine,” made popular by Nat King Cole.

In the 50s and early 60s, Lorraine catered to a large black clientele. The upscale hotel on Mulberry Street was often the only bed in town for the likes of Areth Franklin, Ray Charles or Ottis Redding. Lorraine's traded hands, more than once. In a city that draws people by hundreds to the mansion of a white singer who “sounded black,” the hotel for blacks was renamed a motel. Bailey had added a second level, a swimming pool and drive-up access to additional rooms on the south side of the building. Evidently this structural amendment designated the building a motel which, to me, has a diminishing connotation.

After April 4, 1968, after a “shot rang out in the Memphis sky” and Jesse Jackson says he felt the blood of King on his shirt, rooms 306 and 307 were closed in memorandum. I can't hazard a guess of how the general white population felt then, how the gesture of the rooms' closings were looked upon by them, by those who the Movement was intended to thwart, the ones who had their white knuckles on the hydrant's spigot, those who held the leashes a let the dogs rein in slack to taunt and recoil. How did they feel then about the logistics, the exactness, the precise location of the killing of a black man in a part of the country where so many had been killed before. How was it viewed in all Lorraine's many manifestations through the years?

Should I say it? Can I say it? Is it politically correct, or is that PC fad arcane, an abutment to seeing and identifying the real issue? Okay, do some black lives matter more than any other. How is Lorraine's legacy looked upon today? How is it looked upon when an unarmed black man can be shot at a hair trigger response and his assailant goes free? Well, Lorraine's reached Smithsonian status. In 2016 the museum was honored as a “Smithsonian Affiliate.”

Interesting footnote, when the Lorraine was slated to close in 1988 a housekeeper—and last resident—named Jacqueline Smith (no angel) protested. Smith had lived and worked there since 1973 and was finally forcibly removed by sheriff's deputies. She objected to the thousands being spent to commemorate King and the Civil Rights Movement. She argued MLK would take issue with the grand expense for him when so many, like Smith, were in need of low-income housing. Come to think of it, in 1988—the Reagan era—HUD was a four-letter word, or at least far from the top of the agenda. Ironically, following the assassination, the hotel did become a low-income dwelling. My guess is that King would have seen Smith's point.