Board of Memphis in May Revived a Downtown that Had Died Along with MLK Jr.

Something had to be done.

After Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis in 1968, a declining Downtown plunged deeper into a place of shame and solemnity. “After King’s assassination, the business community just kind of went away,” recalled Lyman Aldrich, chief architect of Memphis In May International Festival who, at that time, was a young banker in the city. “You had Time Magazine calling us a backwards river town, dismal downtown, no tourism, no national reputation and fractured race relations. “The Peabody was closed. … It went broke and was sold on the courthouse steps.”