Museum sights in Memphis
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A
National Civil Rights Museum
Housed in the Lorraine Motel, where the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr was fatally shot on April 4, 1968, is the gut-wrenching National Civil Rights Museum. Five blocks south of Beale St, this museum's extensive exhibits, detailed timeline and accompanying audio-guide chronicle the ongoing struggles for African American freedom and equality in the US. Both Dr King's cultural contribution and his assassination serve as prisms for looking at the Civil Rights movement, its precursors and its indelible and continuing impact on American life. The turquoise exterior of the 1950s motel and two preserved interior rooms remain much as they were at the time of King's death, and …
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B
Pink Palace Museum & Planetarium
The 1923 Pink Palace Museum & Planetarium was built as a residence for Piggly Wiggly founder Clarence Saunders and opened in 1996 as a natural- and cultural-history museum. It mixes fossils, Civil War exhibits and an exact replica of the original 1916 Piggly Wiggly, the world's first self-service grocery store. It also has an IMAX theater.
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C
Brooks Museum of Art
At the park's edge is the Brooks Museum of Art, with an excellent permanent collection encompassing everything from Renaissance sculpture to Impressionists like Renoir to abstract expressionists like Robert Motherwell.
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D
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
Wanna get funky? Head directly to Soulsville USA, where the 17,000-sq-ft Stax Museum of American Soul Music sits on the site of the old Stax recording studio. This venerable spot was soul music's epicenter in the 1960s, when Otis Redding, Booker T and the MGs and Wilson Pickett recorded here. Dive into soul-music history with photos, displays of '60s and '70s peacock clothing and, above all, Isaac Hayes' 1972 Superfly Cadillac outfitted with shag-fur carpeting and 24-karat-gold exterior trim.
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E
Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum/Burkle Estate
Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum/Burkle Estate, in an unimposing clapboard house, is thought to have been a way station for runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad, complete with trapdoors and tunnels.
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F
Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum
The Smithsonian's Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Museum examines how African American and white music mingled in the Mississippi Delta to create modern sound. The audio tour has more than 100 songs.
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G
Children's Museum of Memphis
Children's Museum of Memphis gives the kids a chance to let loose and play in, on and with exhibits such as an airplane cockpit, weaving loom and waterwheel.
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H
Wc Handy House Museum
On the corner of 4th St, the WC Handy House Museum is a shotgun shack once belonging to the composer called the 'father of the blues.'
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I
Mississippi River Museum
The Mississippi River Museum has a cool full-size replica of a packet boat and other historical displays.
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