CIVIL RIGHTS, THE 4 WAY, AND ROOM AT THE INN

We started our day by visiting the National Civil Rights Museum, which is the hotel Martin

Luther King Jr. was shot in but refurbished into an educational source for those who want to

learn about the history of African Americans in the U.S. I really enjoyed reading about civil rights in the Pink \Palace so I had high expectation especially since it’s the exact motel MLK was at during the time of his death. I was not disappointed. It’s hard to put into words the exact feelings I had reading about the struggles of those who were enslaved, lynched, and victims of police brutality. I felt the hopelessness and anger that they had angry at a nation who denied their humanity and shamed them solely based on the color of their skin. I realized this feeling was not new. Looking on our present day and recognizing all the accomplishments and milestones we’ve had since then is a great feeling, but then after walking out of our lunch and seeing a national guard helicopter circling one of the historically black neighborhoods in an attempt to plant a seed of fear in them made all the accomplishments and milestones feel like a mere scratch in the surface for what is still in store.

 

The second thing we did today was go to lunch at the historic restaurant, The 4Way, and listen to a talk by Kelsey and Jackson from a company called Innovate Memphis. For lunch we ate soul food. We had food options from fried chicken and catfish, mac and cheese, fries, yams, etc. I had fried chicken, mac and cheese and cornbread. Now the talk from Kelsey and Jackson was mainly about the Memphis roads and transportation. Jackson talked about how the public transport in this city is not great and how slow and inconvenient it is especially for people without a means of transportation except for the public one. He told us about how Innovate Memphis works with the city to encourage people to take public transport and shared that the prices are really low. Public transport gave over 2 million rides last year and I really like the changes that they have made already in Memphis. Kelsey’s talk was about how unsafe the Memphis roads are and how dangerous they can be for bikers with or without a biking lane. She didn’t directly tell us changes they made but she gave us ideas and ways on how to solve the unsafe road problems like making two lane roads one lane and providing more and better public transport so that more people can stay off the roads.

For our third activity of the day, we went to the Room at the Inn, which is a place that provides shelter and meals for anyone in need. Our group was tasked with cooking for an estimate of 70 people with a budget of $135. We decided to make pasta with toasted garlic bread for the families. Everyone had a job they had to do. Some worked on cutting vegetables, others worked on making the sauce. Me and a few of the guys were in charge of cooking the pasta noodles. This was an incredible opportunity for us to serve the community and grow in our relationships with each other. It was a little stressful, working in a kitchen that has people moving all over the place, some with sharp objects or hot pots but, it was definitely worth it to see all the people enjoy our food.