By Zach Banov and Eric Chyette

Today’s early morning began with a light breakfast at the local Holiday Inn Express before driving off to the historic Graceland. After taking the shuttle to the mansion, we traveled throughout the seemingly infinite hallways, guided by our audio head sets. The majestic house included a variety of old fashioned designs and priceless antiques. Each room came with a new design and a story that led us closer to understanding Elvis’s life. The tour finished at Elvis’s grave, where people from all across the world leave letters, rocks, etc. to express their remorse for the deceased rock legend. Afterwards we boarded the shuttles and drove over to the Graceland gift shops, where we viewed a variety of Elvis memorabilia and bought various mementos which honored the “king of rock and roll.”

Later we drove over to Beale Street, where we split up into groups to enjoy lunch on one of the most exciting streets in the world. Each individual was given money to go and eat lunch at the restaurant of his or her choice. One group went with Billy to one of the best BBQ restaurants in the city, others went to various bars and cafes. We decided to go to Silky O’Sullivans, which offered an assortment of seafood and BBQ.

Once we were done eating, we went to visit the hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The outside of the hotel has been preserved, while the inside has been transformed into a museum. The museum continued into another building, which showed the viewpoint of the assassin.  After leaving the museum, we met with a woman opposing the existence of the museum. She was the last person to be evicted from the hotel before it was converted into a museum. She has been sitting outside the museum in protest for over 22 years.

	inside the Civil Rights Museum

We then took a two and a half hour drive to Little Rock, Arkansas. Once we arrived, we visited Central High School, the first school to be integrated by nine African-American students. At the school, we had a discussion about state vs. federal government, since that is how the issue of integration was fought in the 1950s. We then had a discussion on abortion and politics. Many of our new friends got very impassioned by the discussion. The talk on abortion is to prepare us for our meeting with the Pro-Life organization we will meet with tomorrow. We drove to our hotel and had dinner at the pool.

After we finished dinner, we visited downtown Arkansas and visited the rock that Little Rock is named after. We sat in a circle, reviewing the previous days and telling our favorite parts of them. After getting a preview of the upcoming day, we took pictures and then left to go to sleep.

posing with the actual "Little Rock"