Sponsored Content
Fourteen of Tennessee’s 15 U.S. Civil Rights Trail sites are in Memphis and Nashville, making it clear that these cities were prominent forces in the Civil Rights Movement. Both cities celebrated Black culture, especially through music, and both too were committed, even in the face of violence, to achieve equal rights through peaceful means. Tennessee’s remaining trail site is powerful in a different way. Clinton, near Knoxville, also had a significant role in the struggle to ensure equal rights for all Americans. To help plan your itinerary for a tour of the Tennessee trail, visit tncivilrightstrail.com.
Memphis
The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel
If a tour takes in Memphis, let’s hope there’s enough time to spend a couple of days there. But if time is short, make sure this museum is the first stop. Rarely does a visitor leave it without saying it changed their life. It is located within the footprint of the Lorraine Motel, which looks from the outside exactly as it did April 4, 1968, when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down as he stood on a balcony outside Room 306. Many cities might have demolished a place that left such an ugly scar, but instead, the Lorraine became a time capsule containing not just what happened in Memphis in 1968, but of African American life from slavery through Civil Rights. Film and photos of marches, sit-ins, speeches and meetings and interviews with Civil Rights activists and leaders tell the story. A new exhibit for 2025 focuses on Bayard Rustin, who dedicated his life to human rights achieved through nonviolent means. Museum tours ends in Room 306, which looks as it did the night King was killed. For now, until an extensive redesign is completed in spring 2026, the museum’s Legacy Building, the former boarding house across from the motel where King’s killer fired his fatal shot, is closed. When complete, it will include a new exhibit based on Dr. King’s book, “Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community,” and displays on the Poor People’s Campaign and the Civil Rights Movement after King’s assassination. This summer, the museum’s reimagined outdoor space reopens, with areas for gatherings and reflection.
Beale Street Historic District
Hear the words “Beale Street” and blues, brews and barbecue come to mind.
Memphis’s longtime downtown entertainment district certainly has all that, but there’s much more to explore there, especially in terms of the Civil Rights Movement.
From the late 1800s to mid-1900s, Beale Street was a lively center of Black business and culture. One of its anchors was Beale Street Baptist Church, the first church in Memphis built for Blacks. Ida B. Wells edited The Memphis Free Speed, the first Black newspaper, from its office at the church. Today, Wells’ statue stands in a plaza named for her outside the church.
In addition to stops of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, Beale Street has museums and plenty of places to eat, drink and listen to live music. For tours of the area, or of Memphis as a whole, A Tour of Possibilities and Heritage Tours are among the local companies that offer guided tours and step-on guides.
The Withers Collection Museum and Gallery
Photographer Ernest Withers documented a history that still resonates today, capturing the momentous and often dangerous upheaval of America’s Civil Rights Movement across the South from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Thankfully, many of the 2 million images he shot are shared at this museum and gallery, located inside the Beale Street storefront that once was his studio.
Withers’ daughter pored through the collection and opened the museum, creating a powerful, visual display with four major themes: black lifestyle, music, sports, and Civil Rights. He covered the Memphis sanitation workers strike, and one of his best-known images shows the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., arms linked with workers as they marched. He captured baseball greats Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson before and after they broke baseball’s color barrier. He snapped shots of Blues legends and photographed Black weddings, funerals, family picnics and other aspects of daily life. The museum, a recent addition to the U.S. Civil Rights Trail, has a gift shop, and a book of Withers’s work is available. Groups can book spaces in the museum for lunches.
W.C. Handy Home and Museum
A two-room clapboard shotgun house in a little park stands out amid Beale’s bustle and neon. Once the home of W.C. Handy, the Father of the Blues, the home was moved to this location, where tourist traffic is heavy. Hours vary at the volunteer-run museum, so call ahead if the goal is to take a tour and learn more about Handy’s enduring impact on American music.
Memphis Music Hall of Fame
This small museum salutes more than 100 people with ties to music history and displays clothing and costumes, musical instruments and other pieces of their lives. Guitars hang from the ceiling; Elvis’s jumpsuits sparkle in contrast to Johnny Cash’s solemn black suit. The hall makes it clear that music flows like a river, with one talent impacting others downstream, from the effect Black gospel music had on Elvis to Isaac Hayes impact on Alicia Keys’ style.
Beyond Beale
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
A white brother and sister who wanted to produce music founded this independent music label in 1957. From the very start, there was no color barrier at Stax. It wasn’t about race; it was about recording music and musicians flowed in from the surrounding Black neighborhood. Stax made quite a name for itself as it produced Otis Redding, the Staples Sisters, Isaac Hayes and many other now-famous artists. Exhibits at the museum are as memorable as the music produced, from a recreated Mississippi Delta church where gospel music sprang forth to the Express Yourself dance floor, where visitors try new dance moves as they watch videos from Soul Train. Not to be missed: Isaac Hayes’ glittering blue Cadillac Eldorado, trimmed in 14-carat gold. Learn too how the associated Soulsville Foundation supports music education and young musicians in the surrounding neighborhood.
Mason Temple
As in every Southern city, Black churches were highly influential in civil right work in Memphis. The massive auditorium at Mason Temple, headquarters for the Church of God in Christ, hosted large gatherings tied to the sanitation workers’ strike. One day before he was assassinated, King delivered his “I Have Been to the Mountaintop” speech, at Mason Temple.
Clayborn Temple
During the Sanitation Workers’ Strike in the spring of 1968, marchers would meet up at Clayborn Temple, an African Methodist church. The stoic stone edifice was a rallying place, and today, that role is remembered at the I AM A MAN plaza in front of the church. There, visitors see the names of 1,300 people who participated in the strike and a gleaming metal sculpture spells out the strike’s memorable motto, I AM A MAN. Next year, the temple will once again be a gathering place, as an extensive renovation turns it into a cultural center. Already, the massive stained-glass windows ruined by tear gas grenades that police threw long ago during the strike have been replaced with new stained-glass windows depicting the sanitation workers’ strike. Right now, Clayborn Temple is permanently closed due to a recent fire.
WDIA
Black Americans by the thousands tuned in to WDIA radio, the first radio station in the country dedicated to African Americans. The station’s original site on Union Street is a quick stop, marked by a commemorative plaque and the station’s marquee. After it took to the air in 1947, WDIA became highly popular, and an estimated 10 percent of the country’s African American people tuned in to hear Black radio personalities and musicians. B.B. King got his start there; WDIA was also known for its outreach and financial assistance programs, funding Little League teams, college scholarships and low-cost supplemental housing.
Fuel stops: In Memphis, options for great food are as wide as the big river that flows beside the city. Several Memphis restaurants are steps away from Civil Rights sites. Central BBQ, with its slow-cooked meat, tangy barbecue sauce and winning meal conclusions like banana pudding and peanut butter pie, is next door to the National Civil Rights Museum. B.B. King’s Blues Club on Beale Street is a short walk from several sites. Look for the neon sign topped with a golden crown. Inside, tender meat falls off rib bones nestled next to fried okra, mac and cheese and other Southern sides as local bands serenade diners and dancers. Beale Street is packed with restaurants and bars, so groups can spread out and seek their favorite food and drink. Dine at The Arcade on Main Street, where Reverend King and other civil rights leaders fed their bodies and souls. Run by the fourth generation of the founding Zepatos family, it is Memphis’s oldest café. Among its offerings: chocolate mudslide pancakes and a fried peanut butter n’ banana sandwich—a favorite of Elvis and the Travel Channel. If the tour is headed south, stop for a meat-and-three meal at Four Way — be kind and let them know the motorcoach is coming and they’ll cook accordingly. MLK loved the fried catfish and lemon meringue pie at this cafeteria-style restaurant. Four Way is close to Stax Records, so back in the day, many a musician also tripped over for lunch.
Leg Stretcher: Follow the Memphis Heritage Trail through downtown Memphis, stopped along the way to read markers about important African Americans and events in the city’s history.
Nashville
Civil Rights Room, Nashville Public Library
Schedule a guided tour of this collection at the main branch of the Nashville Public Library. Photographs, videos and other materials describe the work of African Americans and others to end segregation in their city during the 1950s and 1960s. See how brave parents in 1957 walked first graders past white segregationists so that the children could enroll in previously segregated schools. Sit at a lunch counter as students from the city’s four black colleges did and read the Ten Rules of Conduct sit-in participants followed in the face of threats.
Clark Memorial United Methodist Church
In 1958, the Reverend James Lawson led his nonviolent protest workshops at this modest red brick church. Among the attendees? The late U.S. Congressman John Lewis. Civil rights leaders gathered there for the 1961 meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, convened by the Reverend Martin Luther King. If the schedule allows, make time for the 10 a.m. Sunday service at a church described as “an oasis of hope, help, healing and hospitality.”
Witness Walls
Artist Walter Hood used black and white photos of Black Nashvillians taking action — at marches, at sit-ins, in training sessions— to create dynamic art walls. Arrive at the walls next to the Davidson County Courthouse 10 minutes before the hour and hear music from the Civil Rights era. To access interviews of Civil Rights citizen soldiers conducted by today’s high school students, look for the podcast link on the Witness Walls website.
Woolworth’s
The Woolworth’s sign still fronts the building on John Lewis Way where the Civil Rights Movement held sit-ins. The building is now a theater.
National Museum of African American Music
The NMAAM opened in 2021 to preserve and celebrate the history of Black music in this country. The Fisk Jubilee Singers, a group of students who broke color barriers as sang their way across the country to raise money for Fisk University, are the subject of a major exhibit. Blues, jazz, gospel and other musical genres are explored through videos, touch screens and recordings.
Fisk University and American Baptist
When the Fisk School opened six months after the Civil War ended, it found itself with Black students aged 7 to seventy, all yearning to learn. The school eventually became Fisk University, and on a visit today, learn more about the Fisk Jubilee Singers and the road trip they took in 1871 to sing spirituals and raise funds to keep the university going. While on campus, visit the Aaron Douglas Gallery and see the works of a highly accomplished artist of the Harlem Renaissance who taught at Fisk.
Leg stretcher: Take a walking tour with a local from United Street Tours as they share inspiring stories about Nashvillians’ contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.
Fuel stop: Don’t leave Nashville without trying hot chicken—fried chicken coated in cayenne pepper. Pop in at Prince’s, which created the dish, or sample hot chicken at one of many other restaurants that now serve it. For Southern specialties served cafeteria style, Swett’s is the place. Germantown Pub styles its wings a half dozen ways, and this black-owned restaurant also delivers chicken and waffles, fried catfish and other dishes people seek in the South. The day can start sweet or savory at Shugga Hi Bakery and Café, known for waffles in many forms.
Clinton
Green McAdoo Cultural Center
In East Tennessee, the Green McAdoo Cultural Center shows how Clinton stood up to segregationists. In 1957, despite threats and violence, the small town near Knoxville upheld the Supreme Court’s decision that separate was not equal, and 12 black high school students, the Clinton 12, became the first students to desegregate a state-supported high school in Tennessee. A 1950s style classroom helps visitors understand what school felt like in the segregated Jim Crow era. Visitors also learn more about the 12 brave students and the dedicated citizens of Clinton.
