Historic bell will toll to honor MLK in Memphis
MEMPHIS – Church bells. School bells. Wedding bells. Alarm bells.
Bells have a long tradition and a distinctive sound. They resonate, in more ways than one.
“Nobody wants to hear a shot ring out,” said Noelle Trent, director of interpretation, collections and education at the National Civil Rights Museum. “But a bell — there’s something really beautiful about how a bell gets people’s attention. ... It penetrates through the noise in a way that’s really profound.”
That’s why one bell in particular — a 120-year-old, 1,700-pound church bell, rescued from its perch inside the tower at Clayborn Temple in Memphis — will play an important role Wednesday, when the museum recognizes the 50th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Situated atop a scaffold just south of the preserved Lorraine Motel balcony, the bell will toll 39 times starting at 6:01 p.m., April 4 — the moment, of King’s death.
In this manner, each strike of the clapper against the bell’s bronze interior will represent one of the 39 years in King’s life.
Long neglected and all but for- gotten, the Clayborn bell apparently hasn’t been rung in decades, so for it to rediscover its voice as a tribute to King seems not almost predestined.
After all, Clayborn — dedicated in 1893, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 — served as headquarters during the 1968 sanitation strike that brought King to Memphis.
“The specialness of the bell, its significance to the year 1968, the fact it could have been ringing when Dr. King was in the church 50 years ago, and the fact that it was available when we needed it — it’s just so incredible,” said Danielle Smith, program assistant in the museum’s education department.
The bell won’t be performing solo. Nearly 200 churches, universities, town halls and other institutions worldwide will join the chorus, transforming the Clayborn bell into the centerpiece of an international carillon.
The museum’s partners in Memphis will begin to toll their bells at 6:03 p.m.
Some of the institutions that have pledged to join include the National Cathedral in Washington; the University of Chicago; the University of California, Berkeley; and Boston’s Old North Church.
Some of the churches in Europe that are participating “are older than our country,” Smith said.