TOW #15 - The Lorraine Motel and Martin Luther King

     I read this article in the spirit of MLK day, the reason we don’t have school today. In this article Allyson Hobbs writes about the motel in which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the Lorraine Motel. In order to effectively describe its history in a moving way, Hobbs uses descriptive language and quotes from people who stayed at the motel in its heyday.

     When describing the Lorraine today, Hobbs writes, “The large motel sign features “Lorraine” printed in a dramatic script against a bright yellow background, and ‘Motel’ is written in large red block letters, each letter stamped inside its own white circle. A large white wreath hangs on the balcony outside Room 306, to memorialize the spot where King stood at the time of the assassination. Standing in front of the motel transports visitors to a bygone era. If you close your eyes, the iconic photograph of King’s friends pointing off into the distance, at the place from which they believed the shot was fired, comes into sharp view.” Instead of just telling the reader that seeing the motel is like looking at another era, she shows us by painting the picture. This allows the audience to become more immersed in the story and the scene and better understand what the Lorraine is like today.
     In order to help readers understand the Lorraine of the past, Hobbs uses quotes from people who stayed there. She writes, “As Isaac Hayes reminisced, ‘We’d go down to the Lorraine Motel and we’d lay by the pool and Mr. Bailey would bring us fried chicken and we’d eat ice cream. . . . We’d just frolic until the sun goes down and [then] we’d go back to work.’” This helps readers much as the description does, but since Hobbs mostly likely wasn’t at the Lorraine around the time it was in its heyday, she has to rely on other people’s descriptions. These descriptions still have the same effect as hers.
     In order to describe this important historical motel, Hobbs uses descriptive language and quotes. Today, the Lorraine is no longer a motel. Instead, it’s been converted into a civil rights museum. The room that MLK stayed in when he was assassinated, Room 306, still stands today for visitors to gaze at.

Martin Luther King, Jr., lies at the feet of civil-rights activists pointing in the direction of his assassin. The Lorraine Motel, where King was murdered, later became a civil-rights museum.CREDIT PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSEPH LOUW / THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION / GETTY