Graceland, the legendary estate of Elvis Presley, was smeared with various protest slogans on Tuesday night
Graceland, the legendary mansion of Elvis Presley (1935-1977, "Blue Suede Shoes") in Memphis, was smeared with "Black Lives Matter" and "Defund the Police" graffiti on Tuesday night. The local newspaper "The Commercial Appeal" reports. The protest slogans were sprayed in black and orange on the stone wall that surrounds the home of the late "King of Rock 'n' Roll". Graceland is one of the great landmarks of Memphis, the second largest city in the US state of Tennessee, and a major tourist attraction.
The sentences sprayed on the wall by strangers obscured many of the tributes to the late music icon that fans have written on the wall over the years. Slogans like "Abolish ICE" and "F-k Trump" were also among the sprayed phrases that are currently being removed by cleaning staff. A Graceland spokesman refused to comment on the vandalism. The exact background to the action has not yet been clarified. One possible motivation delivered a user on Twitter: "Graceland is an expensive, for-profit establishment that sucks tourists and gives nothing back to the black communities it is in the midst of."
Historic Elvis sites
Another Memphis landmark, the historic concert location The Levitt Shell, has been defaced with similar graffiti, including "Eat the Rich" and "Defund MPD". The open-air amphitheater in Overton Park was the location where Elvis gave his first paid concert on July 30, 1954. The "King of Rock 'n' Roll" lived at Graceland for a total of 20 years, where he died on August 16, 1977 at the age of only 42. The actual cause of death remains unclear to this day. The property, located on Elvis Presley Boulevard in the Whitehaven neighborhood of southern Memphis, was opened to the public in 1982 and attracts over half a million visitors annually.