Stax Museum of American Soul Music

Memphis, Tennessee

The only soul music museum in the world.

Organized by Memphis’ Stax Records to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts rebellion in Los Angeles, “Wattstax” was seen by some as the “Afro-American answer to Woodstock.”  The museum includes a real, circa-1906 Mississippi Delta church that has been carefully reconstructed and Isaac Hayes’ glittering custom Cadillac Eldorado.

Also in Nashville is the Beale Street Historic District where such musical legends as Louis Armstrong, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters all played in this district's famed clubs featuring the best early jazz, blues, and R&B music ever made.

Located north of Memphis in Henning on the Mississippi River, steep bluffs made Fort Pillow a strategic location during the Civil War.  Built by the Confederates, it was then abandoned to Union troops in 1862.  Stationed here were  262 ex-slaves from Alabama, members of the U.S. Colored troops. When Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest later attacked the fort on April 12, 1864, their assault was concentrated on the Colored Troops, refusing to accept their surrender.  When the slaughter ended, 238 Black soldiers lay dead.