Why Do We Love Tennessee?
Memphis, Tennessee is a great place to travel to with your family to learn more about the history of bluegrass, country, and other music that originated in the American south in the African-American community. But there are so many more beautiful parts of the state of Tennessee, including Memphis specifically. When you think of Memphis, you probably think of Elvis and ignorance, so you can always learn more about such a beautiful place.
Tennessee was recently in the news for a nearly total restriction on abortions in the state. When people think of the most ignorant, racist, problematic backwaters of the United States of America, people often think of places like Alabama, Florida, and Tennessee. The real question is, does Tennessee have a bad reputation for no reason? Is there any basis to the claims that Tennessee is one of the most problematic states in the Union?
Well, Tennessee was a member of the Confederate States of America, which automatically makes it a hotbed for racism. Tennessee has a large African-American population but it has been gerrymandered within an inch of its life and thus, this massive African-American population has very little political power. In states like Tennessee, the democratic apparatus barely exists, such that every time a Democrat or a liberal candidate is able to take power, they find themselves unable to legislate on behalf of the African-American voters who put them in power.
Simply put, The Volunteer State (https://tennesseehistory.org/volunteer-state/), though it boasts a rich, diverse, and very black population that makes it a cultural capital of African-American cuisine, music, and culture, those very African-Americans who make Tennessee the gorgeous place it is being disenfranchised. Tennesseans think that white Americans built the state from the ground up, however, Indigenous Americans lived there before European colonizers, and, enslaved African-Americans built most of the infrastructure the state enjoyed. The state benefitted from this unpaid coerced cruel labor for centuries, only to refuse African-Americans entry to the very halls of justice, education, and freedom that they built themselves.
Tennessee was notorious for its chain gangs and the many laws enacted in the wake of the passage of the 13th Amendment that recreated de facto slavery via the prison industrial complex that proliferated throughout the American south. So, when you think of the state, you have to mentally go past Elvis and the many riches he was able to bring to his iconic landmark home, Graceland. Feel free to visit Graceland, but remember the blood, sweat, and tears of African-Americans who built all of the structures surrounding these important landmarks.
Why Should You Take A Trip To Memphis?
If you were to ask the average person from the American south, they would try to minimize the importance of African-Americans to the cultural landscape of the region. At the same time, they would also try to minimize the importance of slavery to the dissemination of racist ideas and ideologies that fomented a hateful movement in the entire Southern region. Be that as it may, these facts are undeniable and no matter how often evil people try to erase Black people from history, they will not succeed. If all the Black Americans in Tennessee were to leave just Memphis alone, it would completely cripple the economy, as it is one of the poorest states in the Union.
This is why when renting an RV in the Memphis area, it is very important to consider traveling with family to see all of the important historic sites where the Civil Rights Movement took hold and captured the hearts and minds of the entire African Diaspora. The Memphis Sanitation Strike of February 1968 served as an important cultural touchstone for African-Americans in the South. Inspired by the activities of the Civil Rights Movements around them, these men picketed in Memphis to have their lives taken seriously while on the job. Even then, as now, African-Americans are trying to convince the world that their lives are important, meaningful, and worthy of existence outside of bondage and cruelty. From the Memphis Riots of 1866 in response to the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865 until 1968, Memphis saw 100 years of sustained, uninterrupted institutional racism.
Therefore when you get the opportunity to camp with your family across the South and you consider an RV Rental Memphis is one of the most important places you can stop and learn more about the problematic history of America. These things are important to learn, and we must sit with and accept the gravity of these actions otherwise we are doomed to repeat them. They may try to rewrite history to exclude these troubling portions, but a truly democratic and progressive society would face its difficult past in order to walk into a more progressive and prosperous future. You can do that by jumping into a recreational vehicle with your family and visiting the historical sites of the Civil Rights Movement in Memphis.
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