The Damaging Commercialization of History

I stood within a few feet of the spot where Martin Luther King was shot dead today. But the weight of what happened at the Lorraine Motel sunk in the most when I looked out of the window that was close to where James Earl Ray stood when he shot King. I could make out the outline of the balcony from across the street, and the raindrops slowly sliding down the window seemed to reflect my mood perfectly. 

And while being close to the assassination site was hugely impactful, something else from the visit stuck out to me even more. After I walked out of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, I turned around to take another look at the spot where King's life was ended. This time when I looked I saw the store front of the museum's gift shop that was located around fifty feet away from the balcony spot. I had just walked around in that shop, and I remembered that the merchandise in that window was not even civil rights related. It was sports gear--shirts promoting the Memphis Grizzlies. To me it was unfitting for there to be an ordinary store front that you could see in a shopping mall, right next to MLK's hotel room and balcony. It seemed like the museum was glorifying and commercializing the spot where a prominent leader of the Civil Rights Movement last stood. 

This observation was built upon when I saw the protest outside of the museum--Jacqueline Smith camped out with signs imploring people to boycott the National Civil Rights Museum, claiming they were misusing public funds and misrepresenting Martin Luther King's legacy. Smith lived in the motel while working there as a housekeeper. She was evicted in1988 when the motel was closed and converted to a museum, and has sought for some sense of justice in the following years. Smith's experience speaks to the gentrification of the museum's surrounding community, as houses were demolished and replaced by expensive condos and businesses seeking to cater to tourists. Smith also said the museum did not represent King's legacy, and that he would not have wanted $27 million spent on a testament to him while the locals of the community were forced out. 

The commercialization and gentrification of the Lorraine Motel shows how even testaments to Civil Rights Leaders can be susceptible to economic and tourist driven motivations, in turn having damaging effects on the communities which those same leaders had built a legacy fighting for.  

-Pablo Richter, Baltimore City College