“THE MOUNTAINTOP” MEMPHIS TRIP SERIES: NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings in Memphis, Tennessee; its exhibits trace the history of the civil rights movement in the United States from the 17th century to the present. The museum is built around the former Lorraine Motel, the site of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Two other buildings and their adjacent property, also connected with the King assassination, have been acquired as part of the museum complex. 

“THE MOUNTAINTOP” MEMPHIS TRIP SERIES: STAX MUSEUM OF AMERICAN SOUL MUSIC The Stax Museum of American Soul Music is a museum located in Memphis, Tennessee, at 926 East McLemore Avenue, the original location of Stax Records. Stax launched and supported the careers of artists such as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Albert King, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Jean Knight, Mable John, and countless others including spoken word and comedy by Rev. Jesse Jackson, Moms Mabley, and Richard Pryor.

“THE MOUNTAINTOP” MEMPHIS TRIP SERIES: LORRAINE HOTEL The National Civil Rights Museum is a complex of museums and historic buildings built around the former Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2016, the museum was honored by becoming an affiliate museum of the Smithsonian Institution.  Civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. stayed in Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in early April 1968, while working to organize protests around the ongoing Memphis sanitation strike. While standing on the balcony outside his room on the evening of April 4, King was suddenly shot once through the neck by an unseen assassin's sniper's bullet. King fell to the ground, bleeding from his head and neck. He was rushed to St. Joseph's Hospital, but the wound was fatal. He died at the hospital an hour after the shooting.

“THE MOUNTAINTOP” MEMPHIS TRIP SERIES: CLAYBORN TEMPLE Clayborn Temple, formerly Second Presbyterian Church, was a historic place in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 for local architectural significance. It was upgraded to national significance under Clayborn Temple in 2017 due to its role in the events of the Sanitation Workers' Strike of 1968. On April 28, 2025, the church was destroyed in a fire, assumed to be intentionally set. Reflections from the cast: “The importance of Clayborn Temple to the Civil Rights movement in Memphis is undeniable. It was a cornerstone of community, culture, and religion. We were the only people at the temple when we arrived. A holy place, filled with such meaning, the souls, ghosts and stories of those who fought the good fight destroyed, burned down and seemingly forgotten. I can only hope that it can be restored to its former glory to honor the memory of everyone who called this place home and a safe place.” – Himee Kamatuka  “Clayborn Temple is historical, yet spiritually awakening. The experience embodies what it means to be on hollow ground. My immediate intrinsic thought was sadness — a cry for what was lost. Ironically, the resonance of the past seemed to be even louder, especially given the timbre of the country present. On our return to Clayborn Temple for a second time, and after our visit to the gravesite of Larry Payne, the sixteen-year-old boy whose life was lost at the hands of the police on the very site of the temple, I felt an eerie shift and a deep sense of loss — loss for Larry Payne, loss for Dr. King in his attempt to see the strike to success, and a loss for humanity’s fight for equality and peace.” – Tyson Williams