Purchase of the rooming house on South Main Street

This is the latest in a long line of misjudgments by the National Civil Rights Museum and probably the most distasteful. The museum has used funds to purchase the rooming house with the intention to expand the museum further. This will be done, apparently by connecting the two buildings together by a tunnel. Once in the rooming house, tourists will be able to visit the bathroom where James Earl Ray allegedly fired the shot.

Bearing in mind, that Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King and her entire family firmly believe that James Earl Ray did not murder Dr. King, the purchase of this building seems even more absurd.

On a moral level, do we really need to sink to this level of gratuitous violence to educate the public - and remember the vast majority of visitors are young schoolchildren. Are there motives purely financial in the hope they can increase the number of visitors. Surely we should concentrate on real life issues. If the museum is to maintain that the museum's sole purpose is to educate civil rights and not pay homage to Dr. King in particular, why do they need this purchase. Surely it would be a magnificent gesture if the rooming house were turned over to more positive use for the community Dr. King died trying to save. Yet again it seems that the civil rights of the poor and displaced are being overlooked by the organization which was created to help them.