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Young Volunteers Revive Memphis’s Beale Street in 1977
In 1977, downtown Memphis was a ghost town. The Peabody Hotel sat empty, the Orpheum showed adult films, and Beale Street stood fenced off.
Yet from this ruin came magic. Young banker Lyman Aldrich gathered 200 volunteers to save the city, creating the first racially mixed planning committee in Memphis history.
Despite fears of riots, they launched the Beale Street Music Festival that May. B. B. King headlined at midnight as 6,500 people of all backgrounds danced together…