I can’t cover all of Charlie’s Angels, but when I get the opportunity, who am I to turn it down? 

Y’all met Kate Jackson earlier in Birmingham Alabama; which, all things considered, seems like a distant memory.  I pause now to reread my own post from several weeks ago, and encourage you to do the same.

Back to Jacqueline Smith. Any true fan of the Angels or of K-Mart will notice that this is not the spelling of the name of the actress and fashion designer. So what Jacqueline Smith am I talking about?  Well, Rob and I went to the Lorraine motel, where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in 1968.  It’s now the National Civil Rights Museum, and has been for many years.  As many years as Ms. Smith has been protesting its existence on a corner across the street from it. 

She was working as a maid at the motel at the time King was assassinated.  Afterwards, the owner of the motel kept the building, maintained it as working motel, but with one difference: he did not touch King’s room, which remained as it was the day of the assassination. 

But what of Ms. Smith?  In 1982, when the motel foreclosed and it was eventually turned into the museum it is today, Ms. Smith, who was living there as part of her payment for being an employee, was evicted.  She didn’t like that.  Not one bit.

And so, the vigil began.  Her neighbo(u)rhood of low-income housing was being turned into museums and more expensive buidlings.  She believed that these changes violated the message of Martin Luther King.  She wants to preserve his legacy. 

And so, every day, for 20 some odd years, all day and well into the night, she stands across the street at her corner with large banners of protest, selling books and fiddling with her cell phone, encouraging everyone to stay away from the National Civil Rights Museum.

http://www.fulfillthedream.net/pages/mlk.jsmith1.html

Despite talking to her, I did not really get any of the information above from her.  The more lucid parts of this post I was able to cull off of the internet.  I guess after 20 years of protest on the street would make anyone lose focus.