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Because my son and many other relatives of mine live in Memphis, I frequently returned to this city at least once a year in the last 15 years, and had several chances to visit Jacqueline Smith — the person who continues her fight after nearly 20 years. Because the protest is in progress, the Guinness World Record has not yet published her name but everyone knew that her protest so far the longest one. Believe or not, it was 18 years and 237 days when I shot this picture.


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While the events that would lead to King’s death were unraveling, Jacqueline Smith was singing. In ‘68, Smith was a junior at North Memphis’ Douglass High School, a star pupil, and a member of the student council with serious aspirations of becoming an opera singer. No one knows, in fact, if the petite but intense Smith was even concerned about the strike going on in her hometown or if she was excited that King was coming. Well, Smith knows, but she isn’t talking.

“I’m not going to talk about that,” says Smith from her couch. “Where I was 30 years ago, that stuff isn’t important. I’m here to protest the National Civil Rights Museum. I’m here to emphasize the teachings of Dr. King.”

Smith has been doing just that, in word and deed, for more than a decade from her tiny encampment on the sidewalk just across Mulberry Street from the former Lorraine Motel. After graduating from Douglass in ’69, Smith’s focus began to change. She turned down a voice scholarship to the University of Southern Mississippi, sang briefly in Chicago, attended State Tech, and worked at Sears Crosstown before landing a job as a maid and desk clerk at the Lorraine Motel, a job that also provided free boarding.

In 1988, when organizers of the National Civil Rights Museum closed the Lorraine for construction, Smith barricaded herself inside one of the rooms. When authorities finally extricated her, Smith, following King’s example of non-violent resistance, set up camp across the street and has been there, by her own count, about 21 hours a day in heat, rain, snow, and even ice storms. (Mark Jordan)