MEMPHIS -- It's fitting that this is the city that holds the National Civil Rights Museum, created within and around the Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered while aiding the fight for fair conditions for Memphis sanitation workers.

What you learn every step of the way in Memphis is how the evolution of American music and the struggle for civil rights are intertwined. From the start, music and poverty tended to be unifying forces. Carl Perkins could never have grown up to write "Blue Suede Shoes" if he hadn't begun singing along with black laborers as a boy picking cotton in Memphis fields.

If you're staying near Main Street, by all means take a vintage trolley through the funky arts district to the museum. From Main, you can approach down a long series of steps, which take you a step back in time: The hotel is much as it was from the outside, with a wreath on the balcony where the Rev. Dr. King was killed and a large plaque adjacent to the lot.

Inside are real-life American horror stories and tales of triumph and tolerance. Among the most moving and disturbing features are re-creations of a lunch counter where a group of young African-American protesters refused to leave until they were served and the bus in which Rosa Parks refused to move to the back.

When I was there, some youngsters from a school group were treating museum exhibits like a playground, and they got a strict talking-to from the leader of the group about how one behaves on hallowed ground -- one of the many lessons to be learned here.

The National Civil Rights Museum, 450 Mulberry St., Memphis, TN 38103; civilrightsmuseum.org ; 1-901-521-9699 . The museum is closed Tuesdays. Hours of operation: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays-Saturdays and 1-6 p.m. Sundays June through August, and until 5 p.m. other months. Admission: Adults $12; seniors and students with ID $10, children 4-17 $8.50. Free most Mondays after 3 p.m.