“Everyone knows it as the place where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, but the history is much broader than that single moment,” commented writer and broadcaster Alvin Hall '74. “It represents the resistance to segregation.”
He is talking about the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, a hub of civil rights activity and the subject of a new documentary premiering next month at the Tribeca Festival in New York City.
As well as being one of the featured voices, Hall is a writer and executive producer on the movie, which is directed by renowned documentarian Sam Pollard. The film, called The Lorraine, also features another Bowdoin graduate, Justin Pearson ’17, a Memphis-based activist and Democratic Tennessee state representative.
As well as featuring at Tribeca, the film is being screened at the DC/DOX festival in Washington, DC, where it is billed as one of the event’s four Signature Movies of 2026, celebrating “visionary artists, cultural icons, and the enduring power of legacy.”
Hall, a Bowdoin College trustee emeritus, previously visited the motel in his Driving the Green Book podcast. This award-winning project explored the history of the Negro Motorist Green Book through a road trip in which Hall documented the significance of places like the Lorraine Motel that were deemed safe destinations for African American travelers. The motel closed its doors in 1988, but the building is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.
