Greetings from Memphis, y'all

Clinton Library

Memphis, Tennessee

We spent this day in Little Rock. First stop, the state capitol building. Because of the holiday, we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It's a beautiful building, like all of these buildings are. During the Civil War, a Confederate prison was on this spot. Later, it was decided to build the capital here. An informational sign says the building was largely constructed by convict labor.

Interesting: A few months ago I watched a PBS program titled "Slavery by Other Means."  It documented that after the slaves were freed and the war was over, whites in the South came up with the idea of arresting blacks on flimsy charges (e.g., claiming someone was a vagrant because he didn't have $10 in his pocket), throwing him in jail, and then putting him to work as a convict--often for years. Tenant farming was also related to this system. I always thought a tenant farmer was someone who signed on to work on someone else's farm for a portion (admittedly small) of the profits. But it turns out that most of them were poor blacks who ran afoul of  laws like this (I'm exaggerating, but not by much): It's against the law for a black not to step off the sidewalk when a white is walking by. Most blacks don't know about this law, as they can't read, so when one disobeys the law the offended party takes him before the white justice of the peace. This official fines the black money he doesn't have, so the white farmer lets him work it off by working as a tenant on his farm. But the system is rigged so the tenant can never pay off the fine.

After the capitol, we went to the Peabody Hotel to watch the ducks come down the elevator, wals across the lobby, and into the pool. Cute. You don't see this everywhere.

We spent the rest of the day at the Clinton Presidential Library, a lovely building on the banks of the Arkansas River. This the the second such library we've seen, having visited LBJ's in 2010. These places are always interesting. I wouldn't visit a city specifically to visit one, but if you happen to be in a city that has one, they're well worth the visit.

When we returned to our car, it was 107 degrees in the parking lot. Yikes!

Tomorrow we'll explore Memphis. Graceland is right down the street, so I guess we'll start with that, thank you very much.