Criminal InJustice: The Lorraine Motel

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† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, and author of The School-to- Prison Pipeline: Education, Discipline and Racialized Double Standards, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice and Considering Hate, is co-founder of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm CST.

The Lorraine Motel
editor’s note fr0m nancy a heitzeg

Gone to Memphis for the Association of Black Sociologists Annual Conference: Black Sociology Matters

see you next week……………

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel

A One Woman Protest at the Lorraine Motel, 2014

“After 26 years and 124 days, Jacqueline Smith is still standing under her blue tarp and umbrella at the corner of Butler and Mulberry Street in Memphis, the location of what used to be the Lorraine Motel…..

But Smith is not at peace. Perhaps she will never be content. “We don’t own one thing down here. Look at that, they didn’t put a BBQ across from Graceland.

Memphis has always been a city where the two biggest attractions are memorials to two dead men: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Elvis Presley. Near Smith’s perch is a sign that reads, “Stop worshiping the dead.”

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