Clinton and National Civil Rights Museums-You Can Kill the Dreamer but You Can't Kill the Dream

Before we head to Nashville, a couple of things were left out of the last post that described our time in Memphis- our side trip to Little Rock, Arkansas, and the half day we spent in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis right before we drove back to Nashville. We thought it made sense to talk about those two visits together in one post; President Clinton was sometimes referred to as the nation's first "Black" president, and he did much to encourage and support civil rights..  Additionally, Little Rock was the scene of one of the most important battles in the fight for civil rights- the integration of Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

The drive from downtown Memphis to Little Rock is only a couple of hours, so we left early Friday morning and headed to Little Rock.  We immediately crossed the Mississippi, since the Mississippi borders Tennessee and Arkansas, so almost all of our drive was through Arkansas.  It was a fairly eye opening drive, although we don't have any pictures; the area seemed impoverished, and under water, both literally (there has been a lot of flooding there) and figuratively.  It really didn't improve until we were on the outskirts of Little Rock, the state capital.

The Clinton Museum and Library is part of the 17 acre William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park. In addition to the Museum and Library, the offices of the Clinton Foundation, and the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service. The design of the main building cantilevers over the Arkansas River, symbolizing President Clinton's campaign promise to "build a bridge to the 21st Century.

The very top floor of the building is a 2,000 sq. foot apartment for Clinton; there is a helioport on the roof. 

The physical plant is huge; it is the largest of the presidential libraries, the largest archive, and the most expensive. 

There are donors' names on the bricks; over 112,000 people donated to the library (including a donation of somewhere between $500,000 and $1,000,000 made by the wife of Mark Rich, who was pardoned by Clinton on his last day in office (but that wasn't mentioned in the Library).

The Museum's "feel and tone" is very different than that of the other presidential libraries we have visited on our trip.  Most of the others spent a lot of focus on the subject's life before he became president; lots of artifacts and anecdotes about growing up and their lives in politics leading up to the presidency; this museum contained almost none of that.  Most of the others had rooms or areas dealing with specific major issues in the subject's presidency; the Clinton Museum is much more detailed.  The center of the main floor is a "timeline" with separate displays for each of the 8 years of the Clinton Presidency: 

A typical panel- besides the timeline and photos the binders towards the bottom contain a facsimile of his  daily appointment calendar for each day of the year. 

View from one end of the room; there are panels for each of the eight years. The bookshelves hold boxes of presidential records, but only about 2 or 3 percent; the balance are light protected by being underground. Between the shelves are the alcoves discussed below. 

The eight timeline panels center the floor, and along the sides are 14 alcoves, each of which highlights a particular subject during Clinton's presidency.  Topics include things like "Protecting the Environment"; alcoves on the Middle East peace efforts and the Oaklahoma bombing; and one on the work of the first lady. Here is the one entitled "Putting People First": 

The Alcoves are jammed with information, archival documents, short repeating video clips, and artifacts.  The one that seemed to be of great interest was one called "The Politics of Power" , the theme of which seems to be the persecution of the President by his adversaries.  The alcove includes information about Whitewater, the impeachment, and the special prosecutor.  Newt Gingrich is singled out for criticism for his role in the impeachment; Monica Lewinski is barely mentioned; in fact I can't recall that her actual name appeared anywhere except perhaps in some of the video clips. The clear impression that the alcove is meant to give is that all of the investigations, including the impeachment, were the result of political power struggles once the Republicans took over the House. 

There is a second floor with additional displays, including gifts given to the Clintons during their years in office; personal correspondence; the giving of an official state dinner; and the President's saxophones:

There is also a full size mockup of the Cabinet Room

And, of course, a mockup of the Oval Office during President Clinton's term.  This is the only mockup, however, that is a full size mockup instead of the usual half or three quarter size mockups; it really gave us a good idea of the size and majesty of the office itself.

 The President used the desk carved from timber from the ship "Resolute"; it has been used by almost all Presidents since Grover Cleveland

That's a moon rock in the display case on the coffee table.

The museum's basement has a very nice restaurant, called "42" (we can't figure out why), that actually has multiple heart smart choices, most likely because of the President's bypass operation. The restaurant is good enough so that people working in Little Rock come there for lunch.

A portion of the display space was used for display of a lego sculpture artist's work. We aren't sure what it has to do with the President, but the work was really cool:

So that was our visit to the Museum; there were two real differences, we felt, between this one and the others we visited: first, in the others, there is a sense that history has defined the subject's legacy and the museum is displaying that legacy. In this museum, the overwhelming feeling we had was that President Clinton is using the museum to define his legacy as he wants to see it defined.  We have read that he advised the architects and the exhibit designers that he wanted "transparency"; it doesn't seem that transparent but rather as if we were in a room with his people "spinning" the way events should be seen. We certainly can't imagine this museum having alternative points of view, as was the case in Truman's museum with topics like the Atomic Bomb, or having a display that put the president even questionably in a bad light, as was the case in the FDR Museum as to his trying to save the Jews of Europe.

And second, at least Alan was overcome with a sense of sadness as he walked through the museum; when you spend four or five hours transported back into time, in this case the last eight years of the 20th century, but it is a time you experienced yourself, and it is a time right before 9/11, right before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, during a time when there were budget surpluses, low unemployment, and great strides being made in so many areas of life, and you can almost touch that era when you see the smiling Clinton and Gore (and their wives) aboard their campaign bus, with so much hope in front of them, and then you are suddenly jerked back to today, it's hard not to be sad. But now that era is history, and so here is the obligatory "Alan in front of presidential museum" shot:

And on that happy note, we leave Arkansas and go back to Memphis to spend some time in the Civil Rights Museum and to contemplate Dr. Martin Luther King.

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don't see the whole staircase.

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. 
That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Dr. Martin Luther King 

Dr. King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, on the edge of downtown Memphis. He was there to support striking sanitation workers, to better their economic struggle through the use of non-violence. The owner of the Lorraine Motel preserved Dr. King's room (306) and the rooms next to it  and continued to operate the property until the 80s (as a very sad aside, the motel was named after the owner's wife, who had a stroke when she heard about the assassination and died 5 days later). Once it closed, a private foundation acquired it, built an adiittional  building around it, and opened the National Civil Rights Museum, a stunning, educational, and very moving museum. 

The wreath is in front of Room 306  The cars parked there are duplicates of the cars that were actually parked there at the time of the assassination. 

No photos are allowed in the museum, but it starts with a very moving film called "The Witness" in which people who were with Dr. King during that last fateful hour recall what they saw and how they felt.  Visitors then travel from area to area, each of which have a lot of information about a specific part of the civil rights struggle, starting in the 17th century and moving until the 1960s.  There is a replica of the Rosa Parks bus; of the sandwich counters where sitdowns were held, and of other symbols of the movement.  An area is dedicated to the Freedom Riders, another to the  Brown v Board of Education  decision, and another to the struggles following Brown. There are areas graphically showing lynchings, and reconstruction, and slavery.  


While we weren't allowed to take pictures, we took some from the net to give you an idea of what the exhibits were like: 

 At the very end of the tour, you are led into a hallway that takes you right next to Dr. King's room which has a plexiglass wall. You can look out onto the balcony and see the flophouse across the street where James Earl Ray fired the single, fatal shot. 

Once you leave the Lorraine, you can go across the street to that flophouse (now also owned by the Museum) and see where James Earl Ray fired the shot. The building has been converted into a museum exploring the assassination and includes evidence submitted at trial, including the rifle, and lots of information about the assassination and the aftermath. There is also a room with a memorial wall memorializing the victims of political assassinations from all walks of life, including people as diverse as Steve Bilko and Harvey Milk. 


The Museum was truly memorable; our only regret was that we didn't have more time to spend there, although we did spend about 4 hours there.  


But we had to leave to drive back to Nashville; we had tickets to the Opry that night! 


Next- our final destination on the 6 month tour- Nashville, Tennesee!