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Civil Rights Trail - Memphis

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  We first visited the National Civil Rights Museum , our first year on the road. A stop at the Loraine Motel is always an emotional experience. The museum is crafted around the motel where Martin Luther King Jr . would often stay while in Memphis.   Ralph Abernathy called room 306, the King-Abernathy Suite.  He was standing on the balcony in front of that room when he was shot and killed on April 4, 1968.  He had returned to support the Memphis sanitation workers who were striking for better wages and working conditions.   The museum is exceptionally well done and highlights the fight for civil rights from slavery through today. We have visited many sites along the Civil Rights Trail over the past several months.  Each stop reminds me that the fight for social justice is not yet over.  I recall Mark Twain’s idea that  “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness”. There is a courtyard to the entrance of the museum that extends across the front of the Motel. The wreat
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Mardi Gras New Orleans

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AIROSMITH found ourselves in New Orlean, just in time for Mardi Gras.  We were last here pre-pandemic in 2019.  Parades and marches were restricted in 2021, limited in 2022, but back in full this year. We were once again visiting our gracious hosts, Steff’s cousin Martha and her husband Will.  They ferried us to a friends home in the Marigny, just off of Royal Street. This wasn’t the large commercial parades to be found uptown.  This was pure participator celebration.  Costumed paraders and homespun floats.  It was “Masking Day”.  Alcohol flowed almost as much as the fun and merry making.  There were people and music everywhere.  Nonstop from 8AM until Sunset.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here ya go. Graham and Will Steff and Martha My Bride!
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Civil Rights Trail - Montgomery Alabama

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  Montgomery Alabama is considered by many to be the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement.  A walk on the Trail here will take you to a dozen destinations critical for the fight.  Some where the movement was planned and conducted.  Others like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Equal Justice Initiative that document the struggle while continuing the work. Add the fight for the right to vote in Alabama and you have the March from Selma to Montgomery over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.  There you revisit Bloody Sunday, Turn Around Tuesday, and finally the 54 mile, 5 day March to the State Capitol. AIROSMITH spent a week visiting the area and still left leaving some sites unvisited.  Our visit here was educational and moving.   On December 1st, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a city bus and was arrested.  On December 5th, her day in Court, the Black community chose to boycott the city bus system.  They didn’t return for over a year. The entire B lack comm
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