This is America. Гришенкова Е.Г. - 81 стр.

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81
Memphis
The music called blues was born in this southern American city. Rock and roll
music also began here. The city is celebrating its musical traditions in May.
Memphis is the largest city in the southern state of Tennessee. The Mississippi
River flows along the west side of the city. Memphis is the chief center of business,
industry and transportation in Tennessee. Six hundred fifty thousand people live in
the city. More than one million people live in the area.
Memphis is famous as the birthplace of two major kinds of American music –
the blues and rock and roll. It also is well-known for soul music.
Memphis, Tennessee began as a settlement in 1819. Three men - John Overton,
James Winchester and Andrew Jackson – started it. Andrew Jackson would later
become president of the United States. They built the settlement where the Wolf
River flowed into the Mississippi River.
Mr. Jackson named it after the ancient Egyptian city of Memphis, which was
also built along a famous river, the Nile.
Memphis became an important city when a railroad bridge was completed
across the Mississippi River in 1892. The bridge increased trade between the east and
the southwestern United States. By 1900, Memphis was the world’s largest market
for cotton and wood products.
Like many other American cities, Memphis has had racial problems. About
forty-eight percent of the city’s population is African American. In 1968, city
workers who collect waste went on strike. Most of the workers were black. The
famous civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Junior went to Memphis to support the
workers. On April 4, Reverend King was murdered in Memphis by James Earl Ray.
After Mr. King’s death, the city worked to improve living conditions for black
people. In 1991, voters elected W.E. Herenton the city’s first black mayor. That same
year, Memphis opened the National Civil Rights Museum. It was built next to the
place where Martin Luther King was killed. Many people visit the museum to learn
about the history of the American civil rights movement.
The center of Memphis extends for almost two and one half kilometers along
the Mississippi River. One of the most famous streets in America – Beale Street – is
in the southern part of the city.
Composer W.C. Handy worked there as a musician in the early 1900s. Handy
was known as the “Father of the Blues.” In 1916, he wrote a song about the city’s
famous street.
Many visitors go to Beale Street at night to hear blues music performed. The
street has become a major music center in Memphis. In 1991, the famous guitar
player B.B. King opened his own Blues Club on Beale Street. When he is in

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