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A Seed inside a Seed:Fifty Years After King
Note: This is an excerpt from my forthcoming book on the meaning of Memphis fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Memphis, “The King” may be Elvis, but the city since April 4, 1968 has been defined by what happened to “A King” on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel outside of room 306.
Like Dallas, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee suffers from a sense of metaphysical guilt over the blood, in this instance, of a King, who came in peace and was slain in its city. No city leader wants this type of tragedy to occur in their geopolitical space. It simply is not good for business; and if not good for business, city leaders walk on eggshells to cleanse their collective guilt for a crime committed within their political subdivision; and some may argue with their acquiescence.
Time they say will heal any wound, any rift, and any loss; only time tells whether this is true. Rarely do we get to see someone stay around long enough to test time and the salve it places on old wounds.
Memphis willing to put the past behind it and gain a reputation as a leading city of the south found it had three men living within its borders everyday for the past 49 years who had refused to pick up the city garbage during the 1968 sanitation strike.
