Skip to main content
Saturday, November 14, 2026Nov 14
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

Clinton eulogizes promoter of National Civil Rights Museum

Former President Bill Clinton gives a eulogy during the funeral for Judge D'Army Bailey at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, Saturday, July 18, 2015 in Memphis, Tenn. Bailey helped preserve the Memphis hotel where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and turn it into the National Civil Rights Museum. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
Former President Bill Clinton gives a eulogy during the funeral for Judge D'Army Bailey at the Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, Saturday, July 18, 2015 in Memphis, Tenn. Bailey helped preserve the Memphis hotel where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and turn it into the National Civil Rights Museum. (Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

By Associated Press 2 min read

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Former President Bill Clinton led the eulogies Saturday for D’Army Bailey, a lawyer and judge who helped preserve the Memphis hotel where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated and turn it into the National Civil Rights Museum.

Bailey died last Sunday at age 73 after a long illness.

At his funeral attended by Memphis’ mayor, other political leaders, lawyers and judges, Clinton heaped praise on Bailey for saving the Lorraine Motel, The Commercial Appeal (http://bit.ly/1MhNoOn) reported.

“The Lorraine Motel could be a parking lot for all you know today if it hadn’t been for D’Army Bailey,” the former president said.

“The man was moving all his life,” Clinton added. “And he believed everything should have a moving purpose, including this museum. He left you and America a national treasure.”