Lorraine Lorraine Lorraine

The Lorraine Motel is monumental and the pinnacle location of the civil rights movement. The death place of MLK and the birthplace of the National Civil Rights museum. That is all fine and dandy but I wanted to look at a topic that’s not often discussed and that is the business side of the Lorraine. The Lorraine was owned by a black man by the name of Walter Baily and he served both black and white people which made the hotel very successful as it had a larger base of consumers. That idea of serving both black and white people made a lot of sense economically that’s why many shop owners didn’t mind the civil rights act of 1964 as it gave store owners an excuse to being able to serve both black and white people. In the grand scheme of things this means more then some extra twenties for the owner it allowed for pro segregationist to loosen their view on segregation. It gave them a reason to prefer breaking the color barriers and adopting a economically richer way of life. This is a very interesting way of looking at the civil rights movement behind a money point of view. This angle on the civil rights is something that can’t be underestimated as money talks. I will always have to look through the money glasses any time I took at civil rights event from now on.

This is part 3 of my podcast series the finale. I picked my BF (Pink Shirt) to help narrate this podcast with me and tried a more conversational style of podcast. Enjoy!