MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Memphis survived the Civil War, yellow fever and racial unrest, and now this old river city may be approaching what its mayor calls "her defining moment."
As the city's leading salesman, Mayor W.W. Herenton is likely a bit biased, but his flowing exclamations aren't without foundation.Memphis' once deteriorating downtown is looking up. Beale Street is happening, and the mighty Mississippi River swirls as majestic and mysterious as ever along its riverfront.
"This is a river, cotton, blues, jazz, gospel town with a lot of Southern charm," Herenton said recently while taking in the sights on Beale Street. "I think Memphis is approaching her defining moment."
Like any big town, Memphis has its problems with crime, drugs and other social ills, but it's drawing good reviews these days from those looking for colorful places to visit.
It was picked by American Heritage magazine last October as the Great American Place of 1998.
The city's annual Memphis in May celebration is a month-long party that includes a major music festival featuring the Delta blues and the largest pork barbecue cooking contest in the world.
Memphis is proud of its barbecue (which in these parts means pork, by the way), and restaurants throughout town offer up some of the best anywhere.
"If you come to downtown Memphis on any weekend, it's just saturated with people from all over the world," Herenton says. "They have a great time."
It wasn't always thus.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in Memphis in 1968 helped speed a suburban flight already under way by many downtown businesses and inner-city residents.
Beale Street by then was a shadow of its former self, largely due to local government meddling and the end of legal segregation that helped make it a cultural and entertainment mecca for blacks throughout the Delta.
In fact, by the late 1970s the four-block strip now known as the Beale Street Historic District was little more than a string of empty storefronts surrounded by a chain-link fence. It was then that the first successful move got under way to bring the street back to life.
Reopened in 1983, thanks to millions of dollars in government and private spending, Beale Street is now a main tourist draw and an indispensable part of downtown renewal.
Its two dozen bars, restaurants and shops draw thousands of visitors to the street made famous by W.C. Handy, B.B. King and a legion of other musicians.
A few blocks to the south, the Lorraine Motel where King was felled by an assassin's rifle slug has made a comeback, too. It's now the National Civil Rights Museum, an educational center and monument to America's struggle for racial equality.
Despite the racial turmoils of the '60s, Memphis has moved past such troubles now. Herenton, in his second term, is the city's first elected black mayor, and he was returned to office with strong support from whites and blacks alike.
Playing on Memphis' rich musical history, boosters focus heavily on the city's nightlife, which accounts for much of the $2 billion a year tourism means to this city of 610,000 residents.
Clubs throughout town, from big boys like Elvis Presley's Memphis on Beale to lesser-known spots such as Green's Lounge in working-class Memphis or the Young Avenue Deli in funky midtown, offer a solid and varied musical menu.
Memphis, of course, is known around the world as the home of Elvis Presley, and the king of rock 'n' roll has left his tracks all over town.
His former residence, Graceland, draws more than 700,000 visitors a year and is the centerpiece of a weeklong gathering of Elvis faithful each August on the anniversary of his death in 1977.
The tiny Sun Studio where rock pioneers such as Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins got their starts shows visitors how humble the beginnings really were.
Stax Records of the 1960s boasted artists such as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes and Sam and Dave. Hi Records scored in the 1970s with hits by Al Green, who sings for the Lord now at his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis.
But Richard Snow, editor of American Heritage, says his magazine picked Memphis because of its place in the overall American experience, not just for its music.
"For what is basically a small city, it has a tremendous history," Snow says. "I can't think of another place that has as many different strains of history flowing through it."
Memphis sits on high bluffs where Chickasaw Indians once made their homes and Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto got his first look at the Mississippi River in 1541.