“Title 42,” an obscure section of a 1944 law authorizing extraordinary [anti-]immigration powers during public health emergencies, was “discovered” by the Trump administration in 2020 as Covid-19 spread globally. They interpreted the title “loosely,” using it to deport people and deny asylum seekers access to the USA. With the election of Joe Biden, most hoped for relief and a return to policies that reflect the generosity and spirit of the United States — a “nation of immigrants.” Yet, the past 16 months have proven difficult in walking back Trump’s inhumane immigration policies, revealing the timidity of Biden and the Democrats’ approach to the ongoing immigration conundrum.
Trump, together with his brash, anti-immigrant senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, genuinely believed that closing off the nation to immigrants (well … certain immigrants) and asylum seekers would win them re-election in 2020. The “Muslim Ban” was one of their first noxious acts upon arrival in office. Trump — sensitive diplomat always — referred to certain African nations and (in our own hemisphere) El Salvador and Haiti as “shithole countries.” He made it clear that the U.S. should do more to promote immigration from places like … Norway.
Trump rejected our obligations under the Geneva Conventions and our own legal and moral obligations by refusing to process asylum seekers, preferring instead to leave them living in squalor on the Mexico side of the U.S./Mexico border. He also cut the number of refugees we accept down to a fraction of our usual acceptance rate, thus undermining our moral standing in the world.
He seized on the pandemic, took authority under Title 42, and expelled asylum seekers, including unaccompanied minors, under the contention that they posed a health risk to the American public.
Most immigrant advocates believed Biden would end the use of Title 42 on the first day of his presidency since it appeared to be an illegal and factually unsupportable use of the law. Many thought Biden would quickly end Trump’s “Wait in Mexico” policy, which has served only to strand thousands of Central Americans, Haitians, and Venezuelans (among others); the policy has benefited smugglers of narcotics and of human beings, and the criminal networks that prey on the vulnerabilities of people who can’t or won’t return to their nation of origin.
What to do? First, let’s change the narrative on immigration. This means being truthful about “why” people are fleeing to the United States. In the case of Haiti and El Salvador, our nation has supported (in recent history) repressive, corrupt “anti-communist” regimes that have not been kind to their people.
Second, let’s stop the racist nonsense about immigrants. Norwegians don’t want to come here! They live in a nicely socialist state of prosperity with full healthcare, long life-spans, and plenty of oil to sell.
Third, our economy prospers thanks to the work, contributions, creativity, and energy of immigrants. The arguments “against” this statement are simply fake news. If we continue to cut off legitimate paths to immigration and immigrants (for short-term political gains), we run the risk of becoming Japan or Italy, with an aging population, political and social hostility to immigrants from the global “south,” all leading to long-term economic stagnation.
The palpable anger and hostility on the far right in this nation does not translate to long-term economic growth and/or social stability. Take a look at January 6, 2021, as a prime example. The “Recent Right” is simply interested in winning; they want short-term political gains, so they can control budgets, power, and money. Period.
The open hostility, last month, of some senators toward an eminently qualified Supreme Court nominee hardly helped bring the nation together, and when our own Marsha Blackburn asked a Harvard-trained judge to define the word “woman,” most Americans rolled their eyes in wonder. The real wonder? How did this unqualified person win statewide office here in Tennessee?
The media has distorted the facts on immigration with sensationalistic reporting and frightening stories of “waves” of migrants heading to our (southern) border. The fact is people are allowed to come here, apply for refugee status, and receive a hearing before a judge — assuming their case is deemed credible. Our nation’s immigration laws are unique in this regard, and rather than bemoan the fact that people want to come here, we should celebrate the story of America as an open, immigrant-friendly nation. An immigrant-friendly nation whose prosperity — culturally, socially, and economically — has centered on the welcoming of immigrants.
If comprehensive immigration reform is legislatively impossible, Biden needs to implement a comprehensive executive policy. He failed to immediately rid us of Title 42, and he can’t win the political argument by attempting to placate the unreasonable right with half-measures and reliance on Trump-era policies.
Biden must reframe the narrative with policies that demonstrate who we are as a people. Immigrants are instrumental to the prosperity of our nation — it’s always been this way. Biden should make this argument; he needs to spend some of his waning political capital to demonstrate a clear commitment to the bedrock ideals that have made America great.
Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the board chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.
Hugh Balthrop is opening a new Sweet Magnolia Gelato Co. location in April in Crosstown Concourse.
“I’m taking the space that was Area 51 [Ice Cream] next to French Truck Coffee,” Balthrop says.
He’s also working on a children’s book about gelato. Adults might want to read it, too. “When I first got into this business [I had to] and to this day, I still explain to people what gelato is.”
Gelato is “just ice cream; but it’s denser because it has less air/overrun than traditional American ice cream.”
When he decided to open a business in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Balthrop didn’t want to get into an oversaturated market like coffee or breweries. He wanted to take “the road less traveled.”
Balthrop, who now lives in Oxford, Mississippi, features more than 500 Sweet Magnolia Gelato Co. flavors. He currently is offering an old favorite, Lotus, which is based on the gelato served at the old Justine’s restaurant. He discovered it years ago in a newspaper article. “My relationship with Memphis — it’s my other home … I started talking to some folks, particularly older folks that are familiar with Justine’s. They thought it was a great idea, so I recreated it.”
Lotus, which is only available in Memphis at South Point Grocery, is “lemon-based with a little lemon zest. And toasted almonds. It has almond essence as well. It’s a unique taste.”
Balthrop originally owned First World Gallery, which he opened in 1995 in Washington, D.C. “It was art from the African diaspora.” He closed his gallery, and he and his wife, Dr. Erica Balthrop, moved to Chicago, where she could finish her residency. They then moved to Clarksdale, where his wife, as a child, spent summers with her grandparents.
Balthrop became a “stay-at-home dad” and did the cooking for their three children. “My tradition was to wake them up with mango, pineapple — tropical fruit. They liked it.”
Around 2011, Balthrop, who “always had this entrepreneurial spirit,” enrolled in the annual Penn State Ice Cream Short Course, where he studied ice cream and the science of ice cream. He also studied under a gelato master at The French Pastry School in Chicago.
Balthrop opened his first gelato business in a 2,000-square-foot industrial building in Clarksdale. He got the idea for his business name while holding hands with his daughter on a walk. “It was a breezy day. We had a bunch of magnolia trees, and at some point I just got a whiff of the magnolia flower.” Everything came together. “It hit me like a ton of bricks.”
Balthrop began creating flavors. He wanted “something Southern, either banana pudding or watermelon or blueberry.” He used “local ingredients from local farmers. Anything I could get my hands on … honey, sorghum, pecans.”
Balthrop then began selling. “Initially, what I did was start knocking on restaurant doors. I was like, ‘Take these samples, just give me an honest opinion. That’s all I require.’” If they didn’t like a flavor, Balthrop “went back to the drawing board. That’s what we did and what we do to this day.”
When the Clarksdale building was sold, Balthrop and his family moved to Oxford, where the manufacturing business and his other retail store are now located.
Karen Carrier, whose restaurants include The Beauty Shop Restaurant, recently sent Balthrop an order for 20 gelatos. She came up with most of the flavors, including Cinnamon Mexican Chocolate Chili Chunk and Jamaican Rum and Mango Vanilla. He got the order on a Monday and he delivered the gelato, some of which he’d never made before, on Friday.
Balthrop’s gelato is also available for shipping, and as for more retail stores, he says, “We might have another Downtown presence.”
And Balthrop does have a nickname. “The Gelato Man,” he says, with a laugh.
Sweet Magnolia Gelato Co. is at 1350 Concourse; (662) 313-6551.
Back in the days of lockdown (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
To anyone who may have been driving around Memphis last weekend, please accept my sincere apology. I was playing tour guide to my aunt and uncle, who were visiting from North Carolina, and, being somewhat distracted, I made what my sister called some “interesting” driving decisions. So if you saw someone still stopped at a green light, pointing out a particular piece of architecture or a local landmark, that was probably me. I hope I didn’t make you late for an appointment.
Besides being absolutely roasted for my inability to be a somewhat competent distracted driver, the day was a delight. My aunt is from Memphis and my uncle was stationed here when he was in the Army many years ago, so they’re not totally new to the city, but it still felt like a chance to see my hometown with new eyes.
Before I delve into our itinerary, know that I know we barely scratched the surface of any meaningful Memphis to-do list. But I tried to cater to everyone’s personal interests as much as possible.
First, we went to Crosstown Concourse, which my aunt pointed out has been much transformed since its time as a Sears building. Indeed.
We took in the last day of photographer Jamie Harmon’s “Quarantine Portrait” exhibition, and I was struck again by the power of so many faces seen through so many windows and screen doors. Though I had seen many of the portraits before — even written about Harmon’s work while it was still in progress — seeing them all collected was another experience entirely. Though I don’t truly believe we’re fully out of the Covid woods just yet, it brought home how much has changed in the past two years. Often, perhaps as a side effect of my profession, I tend to focus on the seemingly negative changes — the loss of trust, the fragmentation of communities — but I was forced to confront the many ways things are better than they were in April 2020. It was a catharsis to revisit that time from the safety of an art gallery, and with loved ones in the same room. That is a blessing I must endeavor not to take for granted.
While at Crosstown, we stopped at the little reading area, where my nephew enjoyed finding books about dinosaurs. It’s a place I’ve walked past many times but hadn’t taken the time to appreciate. How many such spots must there be in town?
Next, we made our way to Broad Avenue, to give the out-of-towners a chance to peruse some arty knick-knacks and to reward my nephew with some ice cream after his patience with the exhibition. He’s 4 years old, so his tolerance for the gravity of any situation is tenuous at best. My fiancée, who is passionate about the built environment, enjoyed being able to talk about the work done in both locations. My nephew enjoyed a cup of chocolate ice cream and the faux-flower-wearing skeletons at Sugar Ghost Ice Cream and Bubble Tea.
We spent a little bit of time talking about and looking at Summer Avenue, then we hopped back on North Parkway to hustle down to Greenbelt Park by the Mississippi River. It was a sunny, breezy spring day, and there were picnickers, joggers, dog-walkers, pot-smokers, cyclists, and everyone in between enjoying it. There’s something special about being close to the river, and we all felt it. Until I accidentally knocked my nephew off a tree while we were playing some game in which we were both (I think?) territorial spiders locked in bitter combat. Oops. Everyone was okay, though it was decided that perhaps it was time to move on.
We drove through the South Main Arts District, where my uncle used to pick up his contacts. We talked about the trolleys, the changes, the things that had stayed the same. We drove past a busy FedExForum and saw young people popping wheelies on ATVs. We waved as we passed both business and entertainment districts Downtown, and I pointed out a billboard of Ja Morant in the Vitruvian Man pose.
Eventually we made it back to my house to make dinner and play board games, not unlike how we used to spend so much time at my Grannie’s house when I was a child. It was modest, but not without its own magic.
I guess, in many ways, that’s true of Memphis, too.
Awaiting Judgment: Retiring General Sessions Judge Tim Dwyer (far left) was, arguably and understandably, the most relaxed person at a Sunday event on behalf of Magistrate David Pool, now running for a General Sessions position. The other jurists pictured, like Pool, are on the General Sessions election ballot and will be facing the verdict of the voters on August 4th. From l to r: Dwyer, Judge Karen Massey, Pool, Judge Bill Anderson, Judge Loyce Lambert-Ryan, and Judge Gerald Skahan. (Photo: Jackson Baker)
SIGNIFICANT DATES: Thursday of last week was the last day to file for the August 4th state and federal primary, as well as for independents running in the county general election of that date. One exception is that the filing deadline for the District 33 state Senate primary has been shifted to Thursday, May 5th, as a consequence of the seat — formerly held by Katrina Robinson — having been vacated last month by legislative action. The current holder of the District 33 state Senate seat is former state Representative London Lamar, who was appointed as interim state senator last month by the Shelby County Commission.
Last day to submit an absentee ballot request for the May 3rd primary election is April 26th.
• EARLY VOTING INFORMATION: Early voting for the May 3rd county primary is scheduled to begin this Wednesday at the Downtown offices of the SHELBY COUNTY ELECTION COMMISSION, with available times of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. Also open on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. will be the AGRICENTER INTERNATIONAL on Walnut Grove; the ARLINGTON SAFE ROOM at 11842 Otto Lane; BAKER COMMUNITY CENTER, 7942 Church, Millington; DAVE WELLS COMMUNITY CENTER, 915 Chelsea Ave.; and GLENVIEW COMMUNITY CENTER, 1141 S. Barksdale.
Beginning on Monday, April 18th, and extending through Thursday, April 28th, those six locations will be open, along with 20 other locations, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 23rd. The other 20 locations are: ABUNDANT GRACE FELLOWSHIP CHURCH, 1574 E. Shelby Dr.; ANOINTED TEMPLE OF PRAISE, 3939 Riverdale Rd.; BERCLAIR CHURCH OF CHRIST, 4536 Summer Ave.; BRIARWOOD CHURCH, 1900 N. Germantown Pkwy.; CHRISTIAN LIFE CHURCH, 9375 Davies Plantation Rd.; COLLIERVILLE CHURCH OF CHRIST, 575 Shelton Rd., Collierville; COMPASSION CHURCH, 3505 S. Houston Levee Rd.; GREATER LEWIS ST. MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, 152 E. Parkway N.; GREATER MIDDLE BAPTIST CHURCH, 4982 Knight Arnold Rd.; HARMONY CHURCH, 6740 St. Elmo Rd., Bartlett; MISSISSIPPI BLVD. CHURCH FAMILY LIFE CENTER, 70 N. Bellevue Blvd.; MT. PISGAH BAPTIST CHURCH, 1234 Pisgah Rd.; MT. ZION BAPTIST CHURCH, 60 S. Parkway E.; NEW BETHEL MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, 7786 Poplar Pike, Germantown; RALEIGH UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 3295 Powers Rd.; RIVERSIDE MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, 3560 S. Third; SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, 4680 Walnut Grove; SOLOMON TEMPLE M.B. CHURCH, 1460 Winchester Rd.; PURSUIT OF GOD CHURCH, 3759 N. Watkins; WHITE STATION CHURCH OF CHRIST, 1106 Colonial Rd.
In this reality, from Rick and Morty to Doctor Strange, the multiverse is having a moment. Written and directed by Daniels, the team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Wang, who begins the story at the end of her rope. She is a Chinese American who runs a little laundromat with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). She’s having a hard time accepting that her teenage daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) has a girlfriend (Tallie Medel), and now that her father (James Hong) is visiting from China, Evelyn is desperate to keep the truth about her daughter’s sexuality from him. Her passive-aggressive machinations manage to alienate both her daughter and father. As if that’s not stressful enough, the laundry is getting audited by the IRS, and no-nonsense agent Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) is not happy with Evelyn’s tax deductions. Why would a laundry need a karaoke machine? It’s for Evelyn’s singing career, she says. What singing career? “She confuses her hobbies with business,” explains Waymond.
Somehow, that’s the worst cut of them all. Evelyn came to America with big dreams, but nothing turned out how she planned. And things are about to get worse once Waymond serves her with the divorce papers he’s had drawn up.
For Evelyn, it’s increasingly hard to focus on her downward spiral because she’s been secretly contacted by a Waymond from an alternate universe. There, he’s married to a version of Evelyn who invented technology to travel through the multiverse — or at least, he used to be before she was killed by a mysterious figure named Jobu Tupaki. The fashion-forward temporal villain is creating a doomsday device to destroy the multiverse. Waymond thinks this Evelyn can defeat Jobu, even though many other versions have failed, because she is living the worst possible version of her life and remains full of potential.
Daniels have crafted a tour de force of pop surrealism on a budget that wouldn’t cover Avengers: Endgame’s catering bill. Yeoh plays dozens of different versions of her character, some of which reference movie roles from her storied career. The “perfect” version of Evelyn, which Jobu teases her with, The Last Temptation of Christ-style, looks a lot like Michelle Yeoh’s real life: She’s an acclaimed actress attending the red carpet premiere of Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Jamie Lee Curtis flexes her considerable comedic talent as several versions of the cranky IRS agent — at one point, she stalks Evelyn with a machete, just as Michael Myers stalked her in Halloween. The great James Hong, who has appeared in 450 films in his 93 years, is razor-sharp, differentiating different versions of Gong Gong (Chinese for “grandpa”) with both subtle expressions and a mechanized battle wheelchair. Ke Huy Quan, who played Indiana Jones’ sidekick Short Round, returns to the screen after a 20-year absence and absolutely slays, switching from dweebish failed husband to swashbuckling time warrior, often in mid-sentence.
The story is witty and inventively structured, but it never cracks under the weight of self-reference. The random acts the reality-travelers have to perform to tilt the quantum probabilities make for some great visual comedy, especially during a wild, Hong Kong-inspired fight sequence inside the IRS building. Daniels don’t shy away from the philosophical implications of the multiverse, although they explicitly reject Rick and Morty-style nihilism in favor of a more Candide approach. Since the roads not taken are unknowable, who’s to say we don’t live in the best of all possible worlds?
Everything Everywhere All at Once Now playing Multiple locations
“I think gas prices are going down,” I said to no one. It was a week ago and I was alone, driving along Union and Poplar and seeing posted prices as low as $3.59 a gallon. I was sure I hadn’t seen prices below $4 a gallon in a while, but the news had been filled with “sky-rocketing gas prices” stories for weeks (accompanied by grim analyses of how inflation was going to cost the Democrats the midterms), so maybe I was imagining things?
Then, on Monday, I got an email from GasBuddy, a tech company based in Boston that operates apps based on monitoring real-time fuel prices at more than 150,000 gas stations in the United States, Canada, and Australia. Each week, GasBuddy sends me a weekly update on the country’s gas prices. I usually send it to junk mail, but not this week. According to GasBuddy, prices in Memphis are 17.4 cents a gallon lower than they were a month ago, down to $3.42 a gallon, if you know where to look. Nationally, gas prices are down 23.3 cents a gallon from a month ago. This is good, right? So why is it not news? Maybe it’s because a “falling gas prices” story doesn’t fit a defining media narrative. Or maybe there’s just too damn much news — most of it bad — to keep up with.
Consider, an English teacher in Southeast Missouri was just fired for teaching “Critical Race Theory” in an elective contemporary literature class that was reading the award-winning book, Dear Martin. It was Kim Morrison’s second year teaching the young adult novel, but earlier this year, Missouri passed a bill outlawing the teaching of CRT and parents complained, you see, so …
Oh, and let’s not forget the case of a woman in Texas, Lizelle Herrera, who was indicted for murder for “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” It was unclear whether Herrera induced her own abortion or someone else’s, but, you know, details aren’t really important in these matters. Herrera was later released because Texas’ new law banning abortions after six weeks is only enforceable if charges are brought by a private citizen, i.e. a vigilante, and local law enforcement had overstepped their authority. Shocker, I know.
But wait, there’s more. All over GOPutin America, legislators are rushing to emulate bills like these, as well as those similar to Florida’s spiffy new “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which eliminates the nonexistent threat of kindergartners being taught anything about LGBTQ humans.
In Tennessee, legislators are not about to be left behind their Neanderthal red-state brethren. They had been working diligently to pass into law a bill that would remove age limits for marriage, because young girls, they do get weary and sometimes just need a husband who will help them with their homework. A national outcry got our Nash-billies to back off. For now.
Speaking of national outcries … The New York Times did a big story this week on Hillsdale College’s fight against “leftist academics,” which mainly consists of getting state legislatures to give them public money to start charter schools in suburban and rural areas (white) to, as the Times put it, “provide a publicly funded off-ramp for conservative parents who think their local schools misinterpret history and push a socially progressive agenda.”
Our own Governor Bill Lee got a lot of ink in the story as the leading Hillsdale proponent in the country among public officials. Lee, you may recall, intends to give Hillsdale College enough of our tax dollars to fund 50 private charter schools in Tennessee.
And, as long as I’m writing about embarrassing Tennessee elected officials, I’d be remiss in not mentioning Senator Marsha Blackburn’s apparent flashing of the “white power” hand symbol in the Senate chambers while questioning Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, who is — shocking, I know — African American. Way to go, Marsha. In a week with tons of disgusting news, you found the bottom of the barrel and scraped it.
It seems like only yesterday that everything came crashing down around us. Nearly everyone in Memphis this February 3rd was startled at some point by the sound of a tentative, icy crackling, followed by seconds of silence, then the impact of a limb or an entire tree. And there were often other noises: the squeal of crushed metal, the snap of sparking wires, or the crunch of splintered wooden beams, as cars, power lines, and homes fell victim to The Overstory.
In Richard Powers’ novel of that name, the trees speak to humanity, putting such calamity in perspective:
All the ways you imagine us … are always amputations. Your kind never sees us whole. You miss the half of it, and more. There’s always as much belowground as above.
That much was vividly illustrated during February’s storm, when an especially heavy thud, more felt than heard, led me to peek out at the house behind me. An entire tree, unbroken, had been uprooted by the sheer tonnage of ice it had to bear, pulling its roots from the ground, lifting the concrete slabs of a driveway with them as the trunk sank into the roof. Removing it took days, the closing of the street for massive equipment, and untold thousands of dollars.
Ice crackled along branches, threatening to fall, after February’s ice storm. (Photo above / below: Anna Traverse Fogle)
Yet the massive tree damage from that day, and its aftermath in lost power and time, is but one pole in the ongoing dichotomy that Memphis must confront over and over again, caught between damning our trees and praising them. Consider another arboreal moment from less than a year before, when local social media was inflamed with outrage as some beloved neighborhood landmarks “disappeared.”
Last June, local filmmaker and activist Mike McCarthy wrote on Facebook, “If anyone cares to drive down East Parkway right now you can see the removal of every single oak tree from the former Libertyland/Fairgrounds green space.” Indeed, in less than a day, an entire glade had violently vanished, and the comments that followed revealed a deep sense of betrayal: “Atrocious,” “It was depressing,” and “Memphis is owned by developers who DGAF about anything except what money they can make. The mayors and city council members are their enablers.”
Our trees engender both fear and adoration in us, and our endless dance between these two extremes makes one thing clear: It’s time for Memphians to own their overstory, and the best route to that is a deeper dive into the world of urban forestry.
The Unsung Boon of Trees As it turns out, many Memphians are already taking that deep dive, and those who have cultivated their inner citizen-arborist are quietly leading a minor revolution in tree care and tree cognizance. As with so many things horticultural, the Cooper-Young neighborhood is leading the way. Judi Shellabarger runs the Cooper-Young Historic District Arboretum, and she vividly recalls the day the Libertyland oaks were destroyed.
“That was done in one day,” she says. “They always do it quick. But those trees were valued. They helped keep that area from flooding. That’s one of the main purposes of planting trees, is to prevent flooding and erosion. Plus, they would have given great shade out there, on whatever courts or football fields or baseball fields they’re building. But I was talking to two city council people about that, and one of them said, ‘Trees don’t bring money to Memphis.’ And I thought, ‘Yes they do!’ When that floods all up and down Southern Avenue, they’re going to be sorry. Those roots hold down that soil and collect water as it’s running off.”
Mike Larrivee, another Cooper-Young resident and founder of the Compost Fairy program, also saw it as a biodiversity tragedy. He puts the clear-cutting down to “the confluence of greed and ignorance. That clear-and-grub mentality instead of, ‘What can we save? How can we create economic value in this development?’ Statistically, there’s tremendous value in having mature trees on a piece of property, regardless of its use. Just their presence creates value. And that area around Libertyland was sort of an ad hoc arboretum. There were 43 species of tree there, in that little spot. It was tremendously biodiverse.”
The inherent value of trees is a given among a growing demographic in Memphis that wants to preserve and propagate them, and they contrast the short-term gains of a development deal with the very real benefits that urban forestry studies have proven. A 2017 study by The Nature Conservancy, “How Cities Can Harness the Public Health Benefits of Urban Trees,” detailed multiple studies, including peer-reviewed and longitudinal research projects, that demonstrate the many blessings of an overstory. Those include both mental and physical health benefits, from mitigating summer air temperatures and reducing air pollution, to increasing immune system function and decreasing stress levels.
Trees offer cities more than beauty. (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
Land of a Thousand Arboretums Many tree aficionados simply start with their beauty and the immediate benefits of shade. Those factors are likely the driving forces behind the community arboreta that have sprung up throughout Memphis in recent years. As the Cooper-Young Historic District Arboretum reveals, setting up such a program is largely driven by the Tennessee Urban Forestry Council (TUFC), and they are facilitating the process wherever they can.
Laurie Williams, of the Memphis Botanic Garden, describes the process: “The TUFC oversees the entire arboretum program across the state. We were the first Level 4 arboretum in the western part of the state, and we then petitioned to be a center of excellence. That means we not only have a Level 4, with all those requirements, but we also help other arboreta become certified. There are different requirements: Level 1 is just 30 trees with labels on them. Level 2 is 60 trees and a map. And Level 3 is 90 trees and other steps, and by Level 4, you have to have a newsletter in addition to all those other steps, and trained people that can give tours.”
With no small amount of pride, Shellabarger describes how that’s played out in Cooper-Young. “This is our fifth year as an arboretum, and we’re now a Level 3. We have over 112 trees altogether, and we’re working toward more. It’s mostly in front of people’s homes, in their front yards. But we do have some trees at Peabody Elementary School, and some at Cooper-Young businesses. And we have a lot up at the Spanish-American War Memorial Park. What we’re doing in the next two years is, we’re working with the City of Memphis Parks Division to redo what we call the Park Annex behind the Spanish-American War Park. There’s an acre of land that was railroad land, and we’ve been trying to get that cleaned up and replanted with native trees on the north side. And on the south side, we would like to have a food forest with fruit and nut trees.”
While Cooper-Young was one of the first arboreta, many more are in the works. Williams rattles off at least a dozen parks, campuses, and neighborhoods that have already curated arboreta or are working on it. But it can be a costly process, and she offers the Vollintine-Evergreen Community Association as a case in point. “We’ve been working with the VECA arboretum since 2008,” she says. “They tried to begin an arboretum, but when you have old trees, you have limbs that need to be taken care of. And it ends up coming down to money. Certified arborists are not cheap when they come out to trim trees. So VECA is really struggling. Of course, we’ve had so many storms, so there are unsafe trees. And the TUFC won’t certify until the main path is clear of dangers. So that’s why VECA is still struggling.”
Memphis boasts several champion trees such as this champion white ash. (Photo: Courtesy Judi Shellabarger)
We Are the Champions The Memphis Botanic Garden facilitates such community-level initiatives, but there are other, more individualized ways it contributes to the urban forest. Every fall (September 14th through October 12th this year), they team up with the TUFC’s West Tennessee Chapter to host an Urban Forestry Advisor’s Class. As Williams explains, “Eric Bridges, who used to be the naturalist for Lakeland [and] is now the operations director of the Overton Park Conservancy, teaches quite a bit of our classes and talks about wildlife corridors, for example. Instead of everybody having two and a half acres and ripping out the native trees and putting in a bunch of Japanese maples, keep corridors for wildlife to survive, so they don’t have to go into heat islands. Eric does a really good job. And then Wes Hopper teaches quite a bit. We do a lot of tree identification and teach people how to plant trees. And we talk about the arboretum and championship tree programs.”
The latter program is yet another way that the TUFC supports an appreciation of the overstory. “Champion” trees are the largest, healthiest examples of a particular species in the state, and Memphis boasts several. Shellabarger describes the process: “We have a championship tree team here in Shelby County, and we’re not experts, but we’re from the West Tennessee Chapter, and we go out and measure the tree and take pictures of it and mark its location with the GPS and send it to the state. The University of Tennessee will send students down here to measure it for us, and they’ll review all the other trees in the state and pick the winners.”
Cooper-Young boasts several, all identified with signage as per the requirements of a TUFC-approved arboretum. “We have six or seven state champion trees in Cooper-Young,” says Shellabarger. “There’s a champion California incense cedar at 2052 Nelson. My favorite tree, though it’s not a champion, is the Carolina silverbell, and it should be flowering probably in the next two weeks. It has little white flower-shaped bells, and it’s at 1991 Oliver.”
Tree City, U.S.A. While the TUFC and its West Tennessee Chapter have a hand in many of the arboreal pursuits in this area, the networks of urban forestry activists run on a national and international scale as well. Memphis has officially been designated a “Tree City, U.S.A.,” by the national Arbor Day Foundation, but it was Germantown that nabbed that honor first. Williams explains: “Memphis became a Tree City, U.S.A., a few years ago, and to do that, a city has to have a Tree Board and an Arbor Day celebration. There are some requirements. It takes a long time to achieve that Tree City status. Nashville’s been that way for quite a while. Germantown, also. Memphis was behind that curve. There are some requirements about money, and there are cities that have more money available than others. Because you have to have a certain amount per capita.”
That may explain why Germantown led the way. Hopper points out that “Memphis has had a Tree Board for maybe eight years, but Germantown’s had a tree board for 30. And we are also designated as a Tree City of the World. That was a new program through the Arbor Day Foundation and the Department of Agriculture when I started here. Germantown was the first city in Tennessee to be considered a Tree City of the World, in 2019. The program is managed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Arbor Day Foundation.”
Tree Equity And yet arboreta, Tree City designations, and champion trees are not just for relatively well-off neighborhoods who can fund arborists. A parallel movement is afoot that starts with other benefits outlined in the Nature Conservancy report and elsewhere. These are sociological benefits that show a marked correlation with the amount of tree growth in an area. Wes Hopper, Germantown’s natural resources manager and city arborist, says the current term for this is “tree equity.” As he distills the concept, “If you have a low tree equity in your district, you’re going to have a higher poverty level. If you have a high tree equity, like a rating of 85-90, you’re probably going to have a higher social standing in that area.” The website treeequityscore.org presents an interactive map that shows the tree equity rating of any given locale. Unsurprisingly, poverty-stricken areas of Memphis have scores hovering around 40.
Mike Larrivee is part of a team that’s trying to change that. “There are proven benefits of urban tree cover, like fighting blight and pollution and littering, and discouraging vandalism and vagrancy, that go above and beyond the ecological services,” he says. South Memphis Trees is a local program planning to go beyond arboreta with the planting of new trees on a massive scale. Larrivee and others are trying to fuel that movement. “For the South Memphis Trees project,” Larrivee says, “the Wolf River Conservancy, the Native Plant Initiative, and Compost Fairy/Atlas Organics just co-hosted an event with Urban Earth and potted up 3,500 saplings for the urban tree farm. We’ve put tons of trees in the ground in the last three years that we’ve been working together. Ryan Hall at Wolf River Conservancy is a tank! There’s no telling how many thousands of trees are standing as a direct consequence of his engagement.”
Playing the Long Game Indeed, champion trees aside, tree-planting seems to be the key to ensuring the role of trees in the city’s future. For one thing, as traumatic as downing mature trees can be, that’s sometimes necessary, leaving new growth as the only possible response. That’s Wes Hopper’s philosophy, as he manages tree-related issues for Germantown, not to mention sitting on both Germantown’s and Memphis’ Tree Boards and being a board member of the TUFC.
“Having all those connections, I ended up working with the forestry division of MLGW, as a liaison between property owners and the MLGW tree crews, trying to help clients understand the importance of having that clearance from the utility wires. The best thing we could do would be to remove a tree and plant a tree somewhere else. That didn’t always go over so well. Tree removals can be a touchy subject for some people, but a lot of times, it’s best just to remove the tree. Because the electricity is going to win. If you plant a big tree by the utility lines, sooner or later your tree’s gonna get whacked.”
Such a long-term approach helps us to understand both the ice storm wreckage and the trauma of losing beloved trees, says Hopper. “Those trees at Libertyland? A lot of them were healthy, but a lot of them had a poor root system,” he says. “I went out to look at the trees, even the big oak trees, and I saw a lot of root rot on them.
“So we have to involve the community,” Hopper continues. “If they have an issue with our urban forest, someone needs to take action. You can go to Parks and Recreation, go to a Tree Board meeting and say, ‘I want to get a Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program (TAEP) grant to get trees replanted in place of those that got removed.’ The TAEP grant is an environmental grant through the state forestry division and you apply to plant a certain amount of trees in that area. Sometimes it just takes one person to pull the team together and make it function. You take a person like Judi Shellabarger, that lady gets things done!”
If some find that unsatisfying, such community involvement may also help build on what’s already in place. For now, the Tree Board can make recommendations and suggestions, but a groundswell could elevate the body’s importance. And it will take political pressure to value trees at the level of policy. Mark Follis, owner of Follis Tree Preservation and member of the Memphis Tree Board, served briefly through a period when the city government deemed trees more worthy of attention. “Memphis had a city forester until budget cuts in 2005. But he had no money. He had the position, but no budget. Then for three years, more recently, we had a grant and I was the city forester, but only on a part-time basis while the grant lasted. There isn’t a permanent position now.”
As Mike Larrivee says, it boils down to political will: “Memphis gets compared to Detroit a lot because our demographics and economy are similar. But for years, Memphis did not have a paid arborist or tree team until Mark got that part-time funded position. By comparison, the city of Detroit has a tree team of 20 on the city payroll. Same size city, with the same sort of density and coverage of urban canopy, and they’ve had an urban tree team for 100 years. So we just do not prioritize or allocate resources in a way that’s befitting the assets we have.”
The West TN Chapter of the TUFC will hold its annual meeting at the Memphis Botanic Garden on Thursday, April 21, at 1 p.m. Bill Bullock will speak on battling invasive plants in Overton Park’s Old Forest.
A new coalition launched last week urging the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) toward a fossil-fuel-free future by 2030, but the provider aims to get there by 2050 to ensure low-cost and reliable energy.
Dozens of organizations formed the Clean Up TVA Coalition (CUTC) last week. It includes environmental, social justice, and political groups like the Memphis NAACP, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), the Sierra Club, Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light, the Center for Biological Diversity, and more
They formed CUTC in response to TVA’s move to replace coal-fired power plants in Kingston (East Tennessee) and Cumberland City (Middle Tennessee) with a new methane gas plant and 149 miles of new gas pipeline. Instead of investing in gas, the group wants TVA to invest in clean energy solutions to replace the coal plants.
“TVA is too reliant on fossil fuel energy and plans to continue to generate millions of tons of carbon,” said Pearl Walker, co-chair of the Memphis NAACP Environmental Justice Committee. “Households in the TVA footprint — especially Black, Brown, and low-wealth communities — will continue to be disproportionately burdened by high utility bills and dirty energy.”
In May 2021, TVA board members endorsed a plan to move toward net-zero emissions by 2050. The power agency has cut its carbon emissions by 63 percent since 2005. To get there, it added 1,600 megawatts of new nuclear capacity (the most of any utility in the nation, TVA said), added 1,600 megawatts of wind and solar capacity, planned to retire 8,600 megawatts of coal capacity by 2023, and invested more than $400 million to promote energy efficiency.
“The steps we’ve already taken operationally and financially have created a strong foundation for supplying cleaner energy without impacting reliability or low cost,” said Jeff Lyash, TVA president and CEO. “TVA is an industry leader in carbon reduction, but we aren’t satisfied. We are focused on increasing carbon reduction while maintaining our commitment to the low-cost, reliable energy our customers expect and deserve.”
TVA is on the path to cut carbon by 80 percent by 2035 without impacting TVA’s reliability or costs, Lyash said. It expects to retire all of its coal plants that year, using natural gas facilities as a “bridging strategy to effectively allow the addition of more renewable energy without impacting system reliability.”
But to get to net-zero carbon emissions will take new developments like energy storage systems, carbon capture, and advanced nuclear solutions.
President Joe Biden wants carbon-free electricity by 2035, according to an executive order he issued in December. Federal operations and federal procurements will be carbon-free by 2050, under Biden’s order.
Sports podcaster and writer Francis Carlota stirred up some MEMernet magic last week. He suggested Ja Morant and Dwayne Johnson meet up at FedExForum in the postseason (for some reason).
Johnson replied, “I made my bones and came up in Memphis!!! That’s my city! I wrestled every Saturday morning at the channel 5 tv station and every Monday night I wrestled at the Big Top flea market.”
Morant seemed open to the meeting, tweeting simply, “Yeah, pull up @theRock.”
Frank, Frank, Frank
These tweets tell you everything you need to know about our Tennessee General Assembly.
“Like many GOP-led states, TN just made ivermectin available to anyone. Quote of the session from sponsor @SenFrankNiceley: ‘It’s a lot safer to go to your pharmacist and let him tell you how much ivermectin to take than it is to go to the co-op and guess what size horse you are.’” — From Nashville Public Radio reporter Blake Farmer
Awadagin Pratt (Photo: Courtesy of Iris Orchestra)
The Iris Orchestra’s closing concert of the 2021-2022 season, on April 23rd and 24th, was nearly its swan song. For a moment, it appeared that the much-loved collection of virtuosos from around the world, who gather in Memphis for a few select concerts every year, was unsustainable. The notion was deeply troubling for founder and conductor Michael Stern, but he wanted to do the moment justice. “We expressly chose Beethoven’s 5th Symphony because we thought for a moment that we’d be suspending operations, and that this would have been our last concert ever,” says Stern. “I wanted to bring full closure. Beethoven’s 5th Symphony closed our very first concert ever, in 2000. So I thought, if this is going to be our last concert, let it also feature the piece that closed our first concert. But with joy I can say that Iris is not going away!”
As it turns out, Iris will stick around, albeit in new form. After the upcoming concerts, Iris Orchestra will be known as the Iris Collective. “The musicians themselves grouped together, committed to the idea that they simply would not let Iris go away. It was absolutely musician driven. And Iris will continue on. It’s going to have a different feel. I will be less involved, and it will be an amalgam of ensembles, chamber music, orchestra concerts, and new ways of imagining community engagement,” Stern says.
The fortuitous change will be foreshadowed by Iris’ chamber music concert on April 24th. “It’s entirely Iris musicians playing Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat Major, and it’s a fantastic group. It gives a little taste of what the Iris Collective is going to be about.”
Reinvention is par for the course for an organization that’s been dedicated to reimagining music from the beginning, founded to be “an ensemble for the 21st century — flexible, non-hierarchical, and passionate about the highest standards of performance.” And, as Stern sees it, this season’s last program embodies all of Iris’ ideals at once. “We have a wonderful piece from the 20th century, not one but two new pieces by essential American composers, and then an iconic work from the canon. That, in a nutshell, is what Iris is about.”
Stern is especially enthusiastic about the new works. “When we started Iris 22 years ago,” says Stern, “the express intention was, in part, to nurture and promote the music of our time, especially American composers. So this is quite a lovely thing, to have a co-commissioning relationship with two pieces in the program.
“Jonathan Leshnoff has been a great partner and friend to us since we commissioned him to write his first symphony, which was a companion piece to Beethoven’s 9th. This new piece was written to commemorate our 20th anniversary in 2020, which is why he called the piece Score. It’s not only a reference to sheet music, it also means 20 years. Since the premiere got delayed by two years because of Covid, this is a long overdue and very welcome performance.
“And Jessie Montgomery is one of the most compelling voices of the last two or three years, for good reason,” Stern continues. “I’ve done quite a few of Jessie’s works now. This piece especially, Rounds for Piano and String Orchestra, is playful and dancing and really lovely. Awadagin Pratt is making his solo piano debut with us on Jessie’s piece, which she wrote specifically for him. He is a force. A wonderful pianist, a wonderful musician.”
That forward-thinking spirit is also apparent in the classics Iris will present on April 23rd, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, Op. 25, the “Classical.” Stern describes the latter piece as “turning a Haydn symphony on its ear. Through the prism of the early 20th century, Prokofiev writes this really tongue-in-cheek and wonderfully energetic music, doing something new. Beethoven, in his time, was also doing something new. He often said he was writing music for the future. Prokofiev was writing at the dawn of the 20th century, and Beethoven was writing at the dawn of the 19th century. And both were trying to find a new way of speaking in the world.”
Iris Orchestra, featuring Awadagin Pratt, piano, presents Where Past & Future Gather, Saturday, April 23rd, 7:30 p.m. at GPAC; and Iris at the Brooks: Beethoven, Sunday, April 24th, 3 p.m. at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.
