Sweet Lorraine

I wept this morning, unexpected tears, at a display in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.  There was so much to see, so much to feel.  There's the balcony where Martin Lutther King was shot and died in 1968.  There's a detailed and moving exhibit on the slave trade and its lasting impact on American wealth and culture.  Meaningful, provocative connections between the Memphis Sanitation Workers' movement in '68 and Black Lives Matter today.  But another display snuck up on me, a storyboard about the Lorraine Motel and its owners, Walter and Loree Bailey.  The two were dedicated business leaders, innovators; they were committed to justice and integration.  After buying the motel, they expanded it and insisted that white and black visitors alike find welcome and comfort within.  Walter named the place the "Lorraine" after his beloved Loree, and in a nod to a favorite 20s jazz tune, "Sweet Lorraine."

Some of the world's great political and artistic leaders found a home at the Lorraine: Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Otis Redding and Martin King.  It was said around town that Loree made the best fried catfish sandwich anywhere--and this is the meal King and his colleagues ordered in their rooms for lunch on April 4, 1968, not long before an assassin took King's life and turned the world upside down.

I didn't know Loree's story until this morning.

Loree, Carolyn and Walter Bailey

So brutal was that evening, April 4, so chaotic and devastating, that Loree Bailey had an unexpected and catastrophic stroke in the early hours of the morning.  She was in a coma for a few days, but never recovered; and Loree Bailey died on April 9.  She left her three daughters, her family, her husband, her city and community in shock.  Memphis lost a bright, brave, innovative leader.  Dr. King was not the only martyr in Memphis that week.  Loree Bailey gave her life, too, "in the name of love" (as Bono sometimes sings).

There are so many of these "hidden histories" among us, stories and lives that bear witness to the decency and courage of spirit that rise when we need these most.  Shuffling through the National Civil Rights Museum this morning--housed in the old Lorraine Motel--I tell myself to keep watch.  To keep watch for the saints like Loree.  To be mindful of their spirit in the streets, in the motel lobbies, in the pews.  The empire's madness is no match for such decency and courage.  Loree Bailey's spirit rises above the noise of race-baiting and caravan-blaming and nastiness in politics today.  Her spirit is the promise of our future, and the pathway toward it.

See more: https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/from-the-vault/posts/lorraine-motel.

Lorraine Motel, Memphis, TN

Memorial, King's Last Motel Room, Balcony

"They Changed History"

"Overcome"