From Shira Hinds:

Our journey so far has been incredible! We began today with a ride from Birmingham to Tupelo. We stopped in Tupelo to see Elvis Presley’s birthplace. We had a nice discussion about how rock and roll impacted the world. As Billy said “it doesn’t take something revolutionary to create a revolution”. This statement is so true in that rock and roll was a musical way to express personal emotions and thoughts and ended up impacting the lives of so many people. It is incredible to me how this artistic form of expression has evolved over the years. Elvis is extremely inspirational to me in that he went against his times and incorporated many different styles of music that fit his personal beliefs. Also, I find it amazing that in the beginning rock and roll was shunned due to its themes of sex and freeing the mind and body and how it developed into an extremely positive and influential idea.

We then headed off to our next destination – Memphis. Here we visited the Rock and Soul Museum where we discovered the changes rock and roll made through the years. After the museum we enjoyed a delicious dinner at Huey’s and then got some time to walk around Beale Street and engage in some necessary shopping. We ended the night at the Rum Boogie Café where we enjoyed the beautiful rhythm and blues sounds of the Rum Boogie Blues Band. They were great! On our way back to the hotel we stopped and walked down to the banks of the wondrous Mississippi River.

Shake, Rattle & Roll! On Thursday the glorious music of Elvis was in the air as we continued on our journey. We began the day by touring the mansion of the late, great Elvis Presley – Graceland! His house was uniquely decorated with shag carpeting on the ceiling of the Jungle room.

Next we visited Sun Studios where we got to see the actual recording room Elvis as well as many others like Johnny Cash, U2, Matchbox 20 and others used. It was pretty intense! Our tour guide, Elderado, was awesome!

Then we went to the National Civil Rights Museum. It was amazing to see the timeline of our American heroes and how they changed the world for the better…not only for their generation, but also, for those generations to come. Outside the museum we walked over to meet with Jacqueline Smith, a woman who has been protesting the museum for 17 years and 140 days.

She believes that the money spent to build the museum would have been better used to help the poor that the museum displaced. In her opinion, this would have been a better legacy to Dr. King. Her story is inspirational to me because she believes that she can make a difference – and I wish her luck.
After that we drove to Little Rock and stopped at Central High School, which was the school in the center of the desegregation debate in the 1960s. We sat in front of the school and had a very deep conversation about Federal vs. State government and the idea of racism and segregation in our lives.

After that we went to our hotel – which by the way is the nicest one we have stayed in so far—and went swimming. What a ball! We ended the night by going into downtown Little Rock and listening to a live concert by a Mariachi band at a Latino festival. It was awesome! We also saw the famous “Little Rock”…and what a cute little rock it was!

And the beat goes on…