Whenever I hear outsiders talk about Memphis they always talk about the negative side to this city. Just like any other city, every city has some type of negative side to their city. Some people say Memphis is only known for Elvis,  the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and high crime rates which is not true in my opinion. Memphis is known for many positive things that would attract people to come visit or even live for that matter. Three of the things that Memphis is known for Beale Street, BBQ, and St. Jude. These attractions bring a lot of  people to this city. Whenever I watch food network they always have the city of Memphis on the channel for its signature BBQ. There are several cities across the country that cook BBQ but none will compare to the taste of our cities BBQ meat. North Carolina and Texas are known for BBQ as well but nothing compares to Memphis’ wet and smoked flavored BBQ.  It is something extremely different and special about our BBQ because it brings several tourists to our city. We even have BBQ contest that are held in here in Memphis, Tn. and people from all around the country come here to compete.

Elvis Presley is another reason why tourists come to this city. Elvis Presley  is known as the King of Rock and Roll and he  one of the most popular recording artists. People look up to Elvis Presley and they try to impersonate him all the time. Even in Las Vegas there are Elvis impersonators. I visited Las Vegas last year and there were Elvis impersonators everywhere. I thought I was back in Memphis for a moment because Elvis was everywhere. We have a vast amount of people to visit Memphis for Elvis week. If Graceland would use some of the money that they made from tourists  that visited Graceland and invested in the surrounding area the neighborhood then maybe more businesses would relocate to the area.

St. Jude is one reason most people do not realize that people come to Memphis for. St. Jude is a hospital for children that diagnosed with severe illnesses. There are people from all over the United States that come to St. Jude in order for their child to receive care. This hospital is known to find cures for uncommon illnesses. I used to work at a grocery store and customers would come in the store and shop for food. They would have several gift cards as their form of payment. I was curious as to why they had so many gift cards so they told me the hospital issued the family gift cards. There were so many customers that were from another city who would use these cards. I was unaware how much of an impact St. Jude has on other cities.

The older I get the more I realize that Memphis is not so bad to live or visit. Once I sat down and wrote down all of the positive things that Memphis stands for it made me realize that you have to make your judgments about things and not let other make the decision for you.