The Legacy of the South

Many people have asked what it felt like to be in the Deep South with its legacy of slavery, racism and segregation.  We Northern liberals can be comfortably condescending when it comes to race relations, but, on the one hand, it didn't feel all that different from home.  After all, we're on the tourist trail, just passing through and not living here. You'd walk into a Starbuck's or a music place and black and white kids waited on you and joked around as co-workers.  Just like the North.

Memphis, outside of the tourist areas, is a very poor city. We were directed by our hotel concierge to take a route to Stax Studios that would avoid the "inner city", but boarded up buildings abounded- not unlike Paterson, Newark or a hundred other cities in the North. 

There was rural poverty, too. Tunica County, MS was the second poorest county in the US a few years ago before the introduction of riverboat gambling, our Big Pink host informed us.  "Now, they're rolling in money and jobs and have low taxes."  Being familiar with Atlantic City, we questioned this rosy economic picture and wondered if Harrah's and Bally's profits really filtered down to the poor folk. On the other hand, we played golf at Tunica National and teed off right before a black league of businessmen- successfully middle class.

Confederate flags still fly and just walking through the civil rights sites and museums is sobering.  We think we live in turbulent times now, until you re-live the struggle and sacrifices people made then.  Visiting the NPS center at Central High School in Little Rock was a moving experience, both when you saw the videos of the nine students enduring harrassment and hatred from the crowds and when you looked around the now all black neighborhood and school and wondered how far we've really come. The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis laid out the entire civil rights struggle and provided Martin Luther King's powerful and emotional speeches in the context of the events, as if I was hearing them the first time, not as cliched phrases, but as convictions and calls to action. You realized the enormity of the sacrifices made for basic rights of living and voting, against the irony of the low voter turnouts today.

I'm glad we took this trip, which gave me to time to reflect on our history and renewed my appreciation for what's good about America and sharpened my perspective of what still needs to be accomplished.

Here's the amazing speech that MLK gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated:
"And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."