I had two reasons for visiting Tupelo. One was Elvis birthplace and the other was the national battlefield. I got up and our fairly early so Buddha and I could trudge around the battlefield. I stopped at Strange Brew Coffee for an Americano and a muffin. It was really cute place in a converted gas station.
Just down the road was the battlefield. Or um, a postage stamp size lot with a plaque. The National Park Service makes is sound like its like any other battlefield, but, in fact, it is about an acre that has been preserved in the middle of suburban sprawl.
So, then it was plan B because Elvis birthplace doesn't open until 1 p.m. on Sundays and it's about 9:30. I decided to go to the Natchez Trace visitor center and get my NPS stamps for my passport. About a mile before the center, I pulled into the black prairie site and thought Buddha and I could have a walk there.
It was sunny but brisk and we had an almost two mile hike around the prairie. I learned that the Chickasaw and Choctaw who lived in the area initially tried to make alliances with the French or the Spanish -- trying to decide which would be most advantageous -- before they were eventually driven out of the area. Some have returned and they have events here as it is still sacred grounds to them.
At the visitor center, I also learned that Mrs. Elizabeth Jones organized the Daughters of the American Revolution to preserve the Trace. It has fallen into disuse with the event of steam boats and then rail roads. They felt it was important to preserve and I thank them for that. Leave it to women to get a 444 mile long path preserved!!
I also learned that the Walmart kitty corner from the Battle of Tupelo sign was where the majority of the battle was fought. Those who needed supplies were more than a century too early. This was another Union victory that helped Sherman ensure his march to Atlanta was a success.
Even after the additional excursions, it was still too early to go to see Elvis. I thought, I'll go to a coffee shop and write a blog entry and work on my class. I guess blue laws extend this far north as nothing was open near Elvis Presley drive except a sketchy supermarket where I got a bottle smoothie and some yogurt. I parked at the museum and worked in my car until about 12:30 when I decided to wander around the grounds. For perspective, Elvis has 15 acres and the battlefield one.
I was the first one in the door when the museum opened. The displays were minimal and they had a cheesy movie about Elvis as a young boy. I did learn that he was attracted to all kinds of music. Like many others before him, he was influenced by church music and was shy about performing at first. I don't know how I never knew that he had a twin brother who was still born and that he felt some guilt about that throughout life. There were many quotes around the site with people saying what a nice, normal person he was who never forgot his roots. So sad that his life spiraled into addiction and out of control leading to a premature death. His family was very involved with re-creating the home although not much original furniture is there, it is arranged as it was when his family lived there before moving the Memphis.
Since I got through here earlier than expected, I decided to push on to Memphis and take in the National Civil Rights museum there. This would loosen my schedule for the following day where I had a cocktails and dinner date starting at 5 p.m. in St. Louis.
The Civil Rights museum is located in the Lorraine Motel building where Martin Luther King was shot. They have preserved the rooms he and his contingent stayed. You can look out and see the tiny window in the boarding house from where they believe the fatal shot was fired.
The museum is very well done. It starts with the story of slavery and two things I learned here. One that people were enslaved for 12 generations. I really had to pause and think about that. A few years ago, I read a book called the Body Keeps the Score in which one of topics is how the body internalizes trauma and can actually alter DNA that gets passed down even from just one generation that experiences trauma.
The other learning moment was Mary Ann Shadd Cary. She was a free black woman from Delaware who took runaway slaves into her home in Wilmington. A few years back, I read
that the first black woman doctor was also from Delaware. And yet, I never learned that in school with other Delaware history!
There were also good exhibits on the Brown vs Board of Education trial, the lunch counter sit ins, Rosa Parks defiance of sitting in the white section of the bus, a burned out Freedom Rider bus, and relics from the 1968 Sanitation Strike. I did have to skim some of the exhibits due to time and the volume of information on display. Also some of it I had already been through at the Two Museums in Jackson.
Since some of this occurred before my time or when I was very young, I didn't know the depth of the violence and unrest during this period. I do remember my mother telling me of the time when I first saw a black sales woman in Kennards, a clothing store in Wilmington, De. I asked her why that lady's face was all burned up; I was only three or four. I don't recall the incident. But mom was embarrassed and hustled me out of the store, I guess.
My ex-husband was a little older than me, but still at home with a black housekeeper/nanny in 1968 when the riots broke out in the city of Wilmington after MLK was assassinated. The nanny took off and left him alone in the middle of the day. He decided he was going to walk into Hockessin (2-3 miles) to get something to eat. Fortunately, one of the neighbors picked him up and took him home.
It was another packed day and another air BnB. This time I was over a recording studio in the artsy Cooper-Young area. It was a nice modern space and, of course, Buddha was on the white leather couch when I came back from dinner. Not on the stained, blue fabric one.
Taylor, my Bnb host, suggested Young Ave Deli where I had the Yankee (seemed fitting) and tried a couple of locally brewed IPAs. For anyone who watched Buried by the Bernards, this deli was features on one episode for its super large sandwiches. After a muffin for breakfast and a smoothie for lunch, I tore into the sandwich and no prisoners were taken.
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