Woman Still Protesting MLK Museum

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) â€” Walking the sidewalk or sitting on a sofa outside the National Civil Rights Museum, Jacqueline Smith quietly urges passers-by to boycott the exhibit. <br><br>Smith launched her

Monday, January 15th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) â€” Walking the sidewalk or sitting on a sofa outside the National Civil Rights Museum, Jacqueline Smith quietly urges passers-by to boycott the exhibit.

Smith launched her one-woman protest at the site of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination when work to create the museum began. She's still at it 13 years later â€” and bracing for another struggle.

``I just have to stand my ground,'' she said.

She tells all who will listen that the museum â€” the former Lorraine Motel â€” should be a homeless shelter, a medical clinic for the poor or a senior citizens center.

While the museum is widely considered a jewel for downtown Memphis, Smith calls it a tourist trap that distorts King's legacy. The museum draws more than 125,000 visitors a year and is packed each January on the national holiday honoring King.

Smith's protest began when the Lorraine was closed to be remodeled as the museum.

A former worker at the Lorraine, she was its last resident. She had to be hauled out by sheriff's deputies. Rather than accept the eviction, she started her protest.

``I just can't stop what I'm doing,'' said Smith, who is about 50.

But now, the museum is expanding. The city notified Smith on Jan. 3 that she must temporarily move from the sidewalk because it's part of the construction site, although she would be allowed to set up next to the construction zone.

``We are worried about her safety. We are not at all trying to silence her protest,'' museum director Beverly Robertson said.

City Attorney Robert Spence said his office can seek a court order for Smith's removal but so far no request has been made.

Smith vows to resist any attempts to move her. In 1990, she won a court order saying she could stay on the sidewalk but had to get rid of her tent because it was blocking pedestrians.

The Lorraine, a popular downtown motel for blacks before integration, later deteriorated into a haven for prostitutes and drug users. A citizens' group rallied in 1982 to save the motel, eventually persuading state and local governments to put the museum there.

Since the 1991 opening, the museum has been host to multimedia displays telling the story of the civil rights struggle from the country's beginnings to King's death.

King was in Memphis to help lead a strike by sanitation workers and was standing on the Lorraine's second-floor balcony when he was killed. James Earl Ray admitted firing the shot from a nearby flophouse, though he tried until his 1998 death in prison to take back his confession.

As part of the expansion, several buildings will be added to the museum, and the story of the civil rights struggle will be carried to the present.

Smith grew up in Memphis and showed promise as an opera singer. She says she was offered a voice scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi. She turned it down.

She moved to the Lorraine in 1972 to work as a waitress and maid, then ended up living there.

Smith said friends and supporters, whom she declines to name, back her protest through donations. She rents a small shed for her few possessions and says she spends up to 20 hours a day on the sidewalk, taking breaks at low-cost motels or the homes of friends.

Robertson says she isn't sure how often Smith, who has no job, is at her post.

``Many evenings she leaves, and she's not out there when I come back by there at nighttime,'' Robertson said. ``I suspect this is her living now.''

â€”â€”â€”

On the Net:

http://www.midsouth.rr.com/civilrights/

http://www.fulfillthedream.net/