As the sun sets, Charles Paige, doorman for BB King’s Blues Club, paces along Beale Street in search of customers. Behind his back is a fistful of purple wristbands to fasten on tourists in search of good times and cheap drinks. During the first half of the 20th century, Beale Street was the black cultural center of Memphis and home to countless Delta blues musicians who came from rural plantations to make their names. By the 1960s the area experienced severe blight and was almost leveled before it was declared the “Home of the Blues” by an act of Congress in 1977. The area remained in dire straits until 1982, when the City of Memphis leased out two blocks of Beale Street to a private real estate development firm to bring commerce back by showcasing the area’s musical heritage and creating an atmosphere in which blacks and whites both felt comfortable. Today the Beale Street entertainment district has surpassed Elvis Presley’s Graceland as Tennessee’s biggest tourist attraction, with 4.2 million visitors annually—a huge commercial enterprise that many other Southern cities would like to reproduce.