In a world that often feels overwhelming, it’s easy to get caught up in stress, anxiety, and emotional turmoil. As we recognize Mental Health Awareness Month in May, it’s crucial to focus on the small steps we can all take to protect our mental health.
First, remember you are not alone. Although it can be easy to shut down and isolate, isolation leads to loneliness and is linked to depression, anxiety, and physical health problems. Instead, surround yourself with loving, empathetic friends and members of your community who also understand the complex emotions you are feeling and who can navigate them with you.
If social media or news coverage makes you feel overwhelmed, don’t hesitate to take a break. Constant exposure to negative news or disturbing images can affect your mental health, leading to secondary trauma. It’s okay to step back and prioritize your well-being.
August White (Photo: Courtesy Mental Health Cooperative Memphis)
Embrace your emotions, but don’t be afraid to ask for help. Sometimes our instincts tell us to avoid showing our feelings or admitting their depth. Let yourself know that it is okay to feel whatever emotion comes up in whatever form it takes. It is okay to feel anger, sadness, anxiety, and fear. Be patient with the process.
While healing is certainly not linear, it can often begin with a conversation. Never hesitate to reach out for help if you are unsure how to navigate traumatic events. Counselors, family, a trusted friend, or clergy member should all be a part of your support network. Lean on those you trust and be honest about how you are feeling. Remember, seeking help isn’t a sign of weakness — it’s a sign of strength and self-awareness. It’s okay not to be okay!
Physical exercise can be a powerful tool to improve your mental health. A common misconception of working out and physical exercise is that it’s just a way to improve your physical health. While it is true that physical exercise benefits physical health, it also enhances our mental well-being, having a profoundly positive impact on depression, anxiety, and ADHD. It also relieves stress, improves memory, helps you sleep better, and boosts your overall mood. Even modest amounts of exercise can make a real difference. A recent study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that running for 15 minutes a day or walking for an hour reduces the risk of major depression by 26 percent. Through the release of endorphins, exercise works as a natural anti-anxiety, anti-depressant, and stress reliever, boosting physical and mental energy and enhancing overall well-being. If you are new to working out, find a time that fits best with your schedule and start small, with a quick 5- to 10-minute walk around the neighborhood.
Practicing being in the present moment can eliminate a negative mind state. Sometimes we can let our minds wander to past, future, or hypothetical situations where we ruminate on things we wish we could do differently or worry about situations we cannot change or predict. Taking time to conscientiously stay in the present moment with a practice called “mindfulness” can stop our minds from going down a path that has no benefits for our mental health. When you feel these trains of thoughts coming, focus your attention on a specially chosen word or set of words, an object, or your breathing. Another way is to focus on the good things in your life. It’s helpful to do this every day, either by thinking about what you are grateful for or writing it down in a journal. These can be big things, such as the support you have from loved ones, or little things, such as enjoying a nice meal.
Finally, if you or someone you know are seriously considering any form of self-harm, call 988, a national support line. Trained counselors are available to listen, provide support, and offer local resources. One call can save a life and there is professional help for those who need it.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, lonely, or need support, you should not hesitate to reach out to local mental health professionals who are here to help. We must all lean on each other in difficult times. Memphis is vibrant, resilient, and brave. Our community knows the importance of lending a hand to our hurting brothers and sisters. We need to take time to listen, both to ourselves and to others. The small things matter. Conversations with a friend, being honest about our feelings, and reaching out for help are all crucial steps we must take to begin the healing process.
If you need support or guidance, don’t hesitate to seek out resources. Reach out for help; call a trusted friend or a professional. You are not alone.
August White is executive director of Mental Health Cooperative Memphis.
Nashville, being a music industry city, draws a lot of talent, even from Memphis. Yet there often comes a moment of reckoning for that talent, when everything that makes an artist unique collides with all the factors that make the industry an industry — the assembly line, if you will. That, at least, was the trajectory of Memphis-born Cyrena Wages, a singer/songwriter equipped with such a rich, soulful alto that Nashville called out to her for most of the 2010s. There, her duo with her brother Houston, the Lost Wages, was courted by producers who’d worked with the likes of Frankie Ballard and Dolly Parton, leading to some of her first recording sessions. And that, in turn, was where it all went wrong.
Whatever was created in those sessions just didn’t feel like her. Somehow, she felt she “hadn’t even started,” she says. “The stories that had lived in my mind since I was a little girl hadn’t even come to the surface yet.” Part of the problem, she realized, was personal: She needed to confront the young girl she had been to find her true, mature voice. “For whatever reason, some kids, often young women, absorb so many external narratives that our own essence and truth just gets totally washed away. That was me, and I lived in that checked-out space from age 9 until about 26.”
For Wages, the key to not being checked-out was coming home to “the country backroads between Millington and Shelby Forest” where she grew up. Here, she could have the space to develop her vision. And now this Friday, years after she returned to those backroads, that vision is coming into fruition with the release of her debut album, Vanity Project.
Produced and mixed by Matt Ross-Spang at his Southern Grooves studio, the album has some of the rootsy, vintage elements of his previous acclaimed work with Margo Price or St. Paul & the Broken Bones, yet with more of the contemporary pop instincts once championed by one of Wages’ heroes, Amy Winehouse. Most of all, the sounds jump out of the speakers with the grit of a real band.
That includes not only Ross-Spang himself but guitarist and songwriting collaborator Joe Restivo, whose experience with groups like the City Champs and the Bo-Keys brings a subtly cosmopolitan touch to the arrangements. Other A-list players from Memphis, including keyboardist Pat Fusco, bassist Landon Moore, and drummers Danny Banks, Ken Coomer, and Shawn Zorn, bring some heavy vibes and grooves. It’s abundantly clear this was not created “in the box” of a computer screen. This album has soul.
Yet the real soul arises out of Wages’ liquid vocals and the very personal lyrics she has penned. There’s no small irony in the album’s title, as these songs confront her struggles with her own self-image and the double-edged sword of physical beauty. Having grown up competing on the Tennessee beauty pageant circuit, she was immersed in the mix of acclaim, cruelty, and infantilization that such a world cultivates.
“I’ll die in therapy over it,” Wages says of those years, laughing. “Walking around in a swimsuit with a number on your waist like a show horse, all while a bunch of weird old guys give you a score of one to 10. … I subconsciously internalized that whole dynamic and it was in the driver’s seat for a lot of my life. I either bullied myself for not being ‘whatever’ enough, or I’ve been dismissed as ‘whatever’ — and not the smart one, not the creative one, not the artistically capable one.”
Living through all of that, and staring it in the face, lends the album its hard-won wisdom. “Am I a mess or a work of art?” she sings on “Back to the City.”
“In my darkness I ruminate/I wonder if a lover will ever stay with my heavy heart/But the morning sun whispered, ‘You’re the most beautiful girl in the world when you fall apart’/My soul has lines on her face, I am much older than my time/But I’m comin’ up from the reverie and out of the corners of my mind/And I’m going back to the city/I’m going back to the old me/I got a new pair of dancing shoes and damn I feel pretty.”
Such insights into her own life, Wages suggests, couldn’t have come if she was still chasing the brass ring of music industry approval. That could only come from the back roads. “Memphis is part of the tapestry of my soul,” she says. “There’s something different about this place. It’s honest and … heavy. It’s where I can connect to the source, you know? It provided me enough openness to find myself, my real autonomous self, outside of all the voices. That was something I’d never done before. It’s like I had been asleep since I was five years old and then woke up and said, ‘Where have I been? What the hell happened to me?’”
Cyrena Wages and band will celebrate the release of Vanity Project at Bar Ware on Thursday, May 30th.
Richard and Molly McCracken with kids Kaylee and Ryker (Photo by Michael Donahue)
Richard and Molly McCracken are still keeping people in shape — as far as food goes.
The McCrackens are owners of Memphis Kitchen Co-Op at 7946 Fischer Steel Road in Cordova. They also are owners of Amplified Meal Prep: healthy meals that can be purchased online at eatamplified.com and at the co-op’s Memphis Kitchen Co-Op Marketplace.
Amplified Meal Prep has been “going on about seven years now,” Richard says. The idea behind the food is to get people to eat “the Amplified way: maintain weight or weight loss.”
And just to give people a healthy body. “Eating healthy just has so many health benefits. That’s what we do.”
Richard, who was born in Chicago, and Molly, who is from Ohio, were college athletes. Richard went to University of Central Missouri, and Molly went to Morehead State University. “She was a gymnast and cheerleader, and I was a wrestler in college.”
Richard, who does the cooking, began helping in the kitchen when he was “a little kid.” His mom, K.C. Bryant, taught him. “We never bought ‘box’ anything. My mom made everything from scratch. She always needed help, so I would always help her in the kitchen.”
He made sloppy joes and “Heavenly Hamburger” — noodles and marinara with cream cheese and cheddar cheese on it. That’s one of “Mimi’s Meals,” which they carry online and at the market.
Richard continued to cook. “I cooked for all my teammates in college. That was just like meat and carbs. I wasn’t doing anything crazy.”
Being college athletes, he says, they tried to “eat pretty clean.”
Richard met Molly at WellWorX gym, where they both worked at the time. That’s also where Richard and a business partner began their Ultimate Foods business 10 years ago. It was the predecessor to Amplified Meal Prep. “We just wanted to create healthy fast food.”
“Nick’s Barbecue Bowl,” which included barbecued chicken and sweet potatoes, was one of their most popular bowls, he says.
He and Molly began Amplified Meal Prep seven years ago. “That started at my friends’ house. We were making meals for them.”
The co-op, which they opened three years ago in a 6,500 square-foot-building, is for people who don’t have room in their homes to make food in quantity. They now house 60 small businesses, Richard says.
Their commercial equipment includes eight convection ovens, eight standard ovens, four 10-burner stoves, two flat-top grills, a 30-quart and 60-quart mixer, food processors, a 24-by-14-foot walk-in cooler, a 32-by-7-foot walk-in display cooler, 50 prep tables, 120 storage shelves, and 40 feet of vent hood space. They also added a baker’s rotating rack oven, Richard says. “It’s a super cool oven.”
Recently, the McCrackens have been concentrating on catering. They previously did some catering, including weddings and for some Memphis Grizzlies players. “A little catering stuff here and there, but we never really have put it out there that we actually do catering.”
Their catering menu fare isn’t strictly for those who are health-conscious, Richard says. “We do everything. We can do the healthy all the way to deep Southern fried cooking.”
Healthy items would be “the fresh fruit and veggies. More lean cuts of meat and that kind of stuff. Not heavy lasagnas or your pastas with sauces, or anything Alfredo. We’re not going to do anything like that in the healthy catering. We’re going to keep it pretty clean, but still it’s going to be good.”
If someone doesn’t want the emphasis to be on healthy cooking, Richard says, “We can do fried chicken. We can do lasagna, chicken wings, any type of Italian, any type of Asian. Literally anything.”
They recently introduced a brand-new Amplified Meal Prep breakfast menu online and in the co-op market. “We’ve switched out all the breakfasts. All the breakfasts are brand-new.”
And, he says, “We’ll have a new lunch and dinner menu in the next couple of weeks.”
Other new Amplified Meal Prep dishes included a seared tuna poke bowl. They also are offering new salads, including one with salmon, coconut rice, and mango, and a Santa Fe salad with Southwestern-seasoned chicken over Romaine lettuce, tortilla strips, a chipotle dressing, and tomato.
The “Amp Market Salad” consists of chicken, granola, blueberries, strawberries, and apples with “a tangy vinaigrette dressing.”
And their “Bang Bang” chicken salad is “chicken with our Bang Bang dressing. It’s like a sweet, spicy dressing over chicken with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and other goodies.”
Richard and Molly also are planning to get into shipping. They want to ship their Amplified Meal Prep meals regionally. “We want to ship to the Nashville area, the Atlanta area, and, hopefully, after that we can probably expand a little more.”
They will ship “everything that’s available online. They order and we just pack it up. Put cold packs in and send it to them.”
Protection work is the bread and butter for most spiritual practitioners. It is something that can and probably should be done on a regular basis along with cleansing work, and it never hurts to do. You can do it whenever you feel like you need to, or you can make it a part of your regular routine.
Cleansing and protection go hand in hand. When you do a cleansing, you are removing unwanted energies from your property and purifying your space. In an ideal situation, you may want to perform a thorough cleansing before doing your protection work. However, you do not have to cleanse before asking for protection. Yes, cleansing is often considered the first step, but it is not required and sometimes it’s not feasible.
If you add cleansing your space and doing protection work as part of your routine, this will keep your home or space purified and protected and doing it regularly will increase the potency of your work over time.
Many people don’t think of doing protection work until we need it. And in these situations, taking the time to cleanse may not be realistic. Although cleansing on a regular basis is good spiritual hygiene, it is not necessarily required before you do any protection work, even if you have the time and means to cleanse beforehand.
Because protection is so important, there are many ways you can energetically and spiritually protect yourself. Placing gemstones around your home is an easy way of adding protection. Gemstones that are dark in color are typically used for this purpose, although amethyst breaks the color rule and is great for everything. You can also create herbal amulets, also known as gris-gris bags or mojo bags, with protective herbs and gemstones to place around your space.
Some of the best protection workings you can do, though, are ones that no one knows about and that no one can see. Creating energetic wards or shields around your home is one way to add some invisible protection. Another way is to bless or charge items in your home to be protective.
You can use any item that already exists in your home and charge it with the intention that this item is now protecting your home. Many people use door wreaths or other décor near their entryways for this. You can also create something new for this purpose. Break out the arts and crafts and create a special piece to be hung where you feel like you need protection the most. While you are working on it, remember why you are creating the piece (for protection) and put that energy into whatever it is you are making.
You can also create an energetic ward around your home. We don’t have the space to get into energy work, which is the foundation of creating wards, but that is something you can look up online or come ask us about at The Broom Closet.
Energetic wards are a type of protection work used to guard against negative energies. To create a ward on your home, you will want to visualize a sphere encircling your home. It needs to go all around, over it, and underneath it. Once you see this sphere in your mind’s eye, you will want to infuse it with protective energy. Think about the kinds of protection you need from the ward while you are visualizing it.
All protection workings will need to be revisited at some point and refreshed. In my experience, wards and other energetic-based workings may need a little more maintenance than other types of workings. If you are not yet an experienced energy worker, you may want to check in on your wards more often. The more experience you have working with energy, the stronger your skills will be and the less maintenance you will have to do.
As you go about your summer and work on your to-do list, don’t forget to add protecting your home to your list. It’s always better to be proactive than reactive.
Emily Guenther is a co-owner of The Broom Closet metaphysical shop. She is a Memphis native, professional tarot reader, ordained Pagan clergy, and dog mom.
Symphony in the Gardens was once again a sell-out at Dixon Gallery & Gardens. The outdoor event, which was held May 12th, featured the Memphis Symphony Big Band conducted by Scott Moore. Singer Kortland Whalum performed.
Kenneth and Jennifer PierceErin Lech, Vivian Langston, and Evan LangstonJude Tumminello, Mack Meyers, and Eva Meyers
A crowd of 1,300 people attended, says Jessie Wiley, Dixon’s director of development and communications.
“This is an annual tradition every year on Mother’s Day for over 20 years,” Wiley says. “It’s a special partnership between two valuable cultural organizations — the Dixon and Memphis Symphony Orchestra.”
Memphis Symphony Orchestra music director Robert MoodyChristopher Atkinson, Phil Sistrunk, and Olivia Grace AtkinsonRev. Kenneth and Sheila Whalum
The event, which “brings diverse Memphians together,” is “so much fun,” Wiley says. A “joyous day. Time to spend with family and friends. A very relaxed atmosphere. Bring your own picnic or enjoy food trucks. You can kind of make it your own.”
ARIES (March 21-April 19): In the coming weeks, you will experience uncomfortable weirdness if you do the following: 1. Meander without focus or purpose; 2. Give yourself permission to postpone, procrastinate, and engage in avoidance behavior; 3. Ignore the interesting, though challenging, truths that are right in front of you; 4. Hang out with people with mediocre ambitions. But you will experience healthy, uplifting oddness if you do the following: 1. Trust your instincts and intuitions; 2. Authorize your spontaneity to invigorate and guide you; 3. Take the straightforward path that gets you to the destination most efficiently; 4. Be crisp and nimble.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Mysterious energies will soon begin healing at least some of the wounds in your financial genius. As a result, I predict new powers of attraction will awaken in you, making it likely you will add to your wealth in the coming months. To synergize these happy developments, I recommend you give yourself permission to have joyous fun as you lust for more cash. More good news: I will supplement your good fortune by casting a benevolent spell to boost the flow of riches into your bank account.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): When I first got my job writing a horoscope column, I wasn’t looking for it. It found me. My bike had been stolen, and I was looking for a new one in the classified ads of the Good Times, the local Santa Cruz newspaper. There I serendipitously spied a “Help Wanted” ad. The publisher of the Good Times was hiring a new astrology writer to replace Robert Cole, who had just quit. I quickly applied for the gig and got it. Ever since, Robert Cole has been a symbol for me of an accidental and unexpected opportunity appearing out of nowhere. I mention this, Gemini, because when I meditate on you lately, I see the face of Robert Cole.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): In myths and legends, the consummate spiritual goal has various names: the Holy Grail, philosopher’s stone, pearl of great price, nirvana, alchemical gold, key of life, and many others. I appreciate this profusion of sacred symbols. It encourages us to not be too literal about identifying the highest reward. The old fables are equally equivocal about where the prize can be found. Is it in an empty desert or a dark forest? In the deepest abyss, on a mountaintop, or in the backyard? I bring these thoughts to your attention, Cancerian, because the coming months will be an excellent time to conduct a quest for the marvelous treasure. What do you need most right now? What’s the best way to begin your search?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): I have good news for any Leos who are devoted to pragmatism and rational analysis. Just this once, my horoscope will offer no lyrical teasers or mystical riddles. Your pressing need for no-nonsense grit has moved me to offer straightforward, unembellished counsel. Here it is, dear: Cultivate connections that will serve your passionate ambitions. Make vigorous use of your network and community to gather information that will serve your passionate ambitions. Meditate on what course corrections might be necessary to serve your passionate ambitions.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): For many of you Virgos, your health seems chronically unsettled. You may be constantly hyper-vigilant about the next glitch that could possibly affect your well-being. There’s a problem with that approach: It may intensify your fear of frailty, which in turn saps your vigor. But I’m happy to report that in the coming months, you will have an enhanced power to break out of this pattern. To get started, try this: Every morning for four minutes, picture yourself overflowing with vitality. Visualize every part of your body working with joyful heartiness. Send streams of love and gratitude to all your organs. Do this for the next 21 days.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Many people regard the word “faith” as referring to delusional hope or wishful thinking. But I ask you to rethink its meaning — and consider the possibility that it could be an empowering force in the coming months. How? Imagine a faith that’s earthy and robust. You actually feel it vibrating in your heart and gut. It literally alters your brain chemistry, fortifying your natural talents and attracting needed resources. It liberates you to feel pragmatically excited as you pursue your goal of fulfilling your soul’s code.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): When I was born, my parents gave me the name “Robert.” It’s derived from an Old North French word meaning “shining” and “bright with glory.” In Middle English, though, “robert” was a designation for “a wastrel, a marauder, a good-for-nothing.” I use this dichotomy as a reminder that my own nature is a mix of brightness and darkness. A lot of me is shining and inspirational, but there’s also a part that’s ignorant and confused. And what’s true about me is true about everyone else, including you: We are blends of the best and the not-so-best. Now is a good time to draw strength and wisdom from meditating on this reality. Your shadowy aspects have important and interesting truths to reveal to your brilliant aspects — and vice versa.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Here are some meditations on emotions. They are as key to our intelligence as our thoughts! But it’s crucial that we distinguish between emotions generated by delusions and emotions that are responses to true perceptions. Let’s say I get angry because I imagine a friend stole money from my room while visiting, but then later I put on my vest and find the supposedly stolen cash in the vest pocket. That is a delusional emotion. But if I am sad because my friend’s beloved dog is sick, that is emotion based on an accurate perception. I bring this to your attention, Sagittarius because I believe it is essential that in the coming weeks you discern between the two types.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): As an adjunct to the Ten Commandments, I have formulated the Ten Suggestions. Here’s Suggestion #1: Wash your own brain at least three times a year. I’m speaking metaphorically, of course. What I mean is that like me and everyone else, you are always accumulating junky thoughts and useless feelings. Some are generated by our old, conditioned responses, and some pour into us from the media and entertainment industries. And it’s best to be proactive about the toxic build-up — not allow it to become monumental. In my astrological opinion, now is an excellent time for a regular mind cleanse.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): So many writers have said terrible things about our existence on planet Earth. “Life is a disease,” wrote George Bernard Shaw. “Life is a bad dream,” declared Eugene O’Neill. Life is “a vast cold junkpile,” according to Stephen King. There are thousands more of these unnuanced disparagements. Why? Here are the facts, as I see them: As tough as it can be to navigate through problems and pain, being alive in our miraculous bodies with our dazzling awareness is a sublime gift. We are all blessed with a mysterious and fascinating destiny. In accordance with the astrological omens, Aquarius, I invite you to celebrate being alive with extra gratitude and ebullience. Begin the jubilee by feeling amazement and awe for your mysterious and fascinating destiny. Second step: Identify five sublime gifts in your life.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In the coming weeks, I ask you to refrain from indulging in extreme nostalgia. On the other hand, I encourage you to explore the past and sift through memories with the intention of clarifying what really happened back then. Pluck new lessons from the old days that will help you forge smart decisions in the near future. Use your history as a resource while you redefine the meanings of pivotal events. For extra credit, create a new title for the book you may someday write about your life story.
When TaKeisha Berry Brooks set out on her career path, she had no idea where it would lead. A love for styling hair grew into much more, something that would ultimately empower her — and her community.
The South Memphis native has cemented herself as a natural hair stylist and pioneer. She’s the CEO and founder of A Natural Affair hair salon, with locations in Memphis and Cordova, which specializes in natural hair care transitioning and maintenance for locs. Brooks and her husband also own the hair care brand De•Fine Natural Hair.
This year marks a special one for Brooks, as she’s celebrating 15 years of having an “established salon.” “It’s a celebration within itself,” she says. “Business is hard. Business is very hard to not only get up and running, but also to maintain and keep a running engine.”
Along with commemoration, there’s reflection and introspection, as Brooks’ story goes beyond the walls of her business.
Beauty Shop Youth
Growing up in the historic Glenview community, Brooks was raised by her mom, Shirley Pruitt, and her grandmother, Mable Washington Ivory. Brooks’ mother would later get married, and through this union, she learned the value of entrepreneurship, as her parents ran a successful real estate company, A Mortgage Link.
While business was always “her foundation,” one of the most influential players in Brooks’ upbringing was the hair salon. From an early age, she saw the salon wasn’t just a business. It served as a way for her and her mother to spend time with one another — Saturday at the beauty salon was their time. Getting their hair styled together gave Brooks and her mother the opportunity to bond, but it also gave Brooks the chance to see the inner workings of the shop, and how it came to life.
“I remember running around during the early part of my years and my mom used to take us every week, or every two weeks. It was a big part of my life,” Brooks says. “Just getting my hair done and experiencing different stylists in the salon — and we stayed at these salons for years. It wasn’t one of these things where we were jumping all over the place — we had established relationships with these stylists. They were always making everybody pretty and they were always making money.”
This gave her glimpse into a world in which she’d later make a name for herself. For Brooks, there is a life before and after realizing the magic within the salon. At first, she saw stylists as simply professionals providing services to clientele in need of primping. But when she was around 12 or 13 years old, she started to take interest in it as an art. “I would walk up to them and watch them do hair,” Brooks says. “Some of them would let me and some would be like ‘why am I staring at them’ as if it was a bad thing. What they didn’t know is I was so inspired and amazed by what they were doing.”
While uncovering that magic would be essential to her dream, the concept of community found within would forever be at the center of her vision.
Style, Naturally
After becoming a licensed cosmetologist in 1998, Brooks realized natural hair wasn’t in the mainstream like other Black hair services. “It was a very small community of clients, and it was a very small community of stylists at the time that were offering natural hair and braiding services,” she explains.
Brooks is candid about how she didn’t always embrace her own natural hair, and natural hair wasn’t even what she originally sought out to do. She was initially driven by the trendy styles of the time such as weaves and relaxers. Brooks felt that catering to popular culture was crucial to her success, but she soon found her calling would pull her in the opposite direction.
These were the wild west days of natural hair licensing, and while she had a full cosmetology license, she found herself only serving the small percentage of women who had decided to wear their hair chemically unaltered. This was also when Brooks began to perfect her craft with the help of her fellow stylist, Donna Bookman.
“She was one of my salon mates and was the one who really taught me a lot of the natural hair [techniques] like partings and things of that nature. I already had a sense of doing it, but she helped fine-tune it more for me,” Brooks says.
This would be the start of her journey toward mastering the art. Brooks soon saw an opportunity to fill a much-needed gap in the industry, and she took the next step in becoming a natural hair specialist by offering Sisterlocks services in the area. The styling method, created by JoAnne Cornwell, from San Diego, California, in 1992, uses a locking tool to install micro-thin dreadlocks with a locking pattern.
“My mom is the one who invested in me. She had Sisterlocks before people were getting Sisterlocks. She sent me to Atlanta, and I took the class and I came back and started establishing Sisterlocks [here],” Brooks says. “I was the second person in the state of Tennessee to actually take the training and be certified.”
At the time, Brooks saw that being able to offer “a trademarked system” to her clients was a big deal. But she didn’t realize how impactful it would be. Natural hair wasn’t just a hairstyle, but a lifestyle — and, in some cases, a form of liberation.
From there, Brooks delved further into natural hair care. “My path and my journey began to take me on something different,” she says. “That was number-one starting out with Lisa Akbari. For a brief time I worked for her, and one of the things I learned [about] was that she has a trichology facility.”
Akbari serviced clients who were experiencing hair loss and suffering from conditions such as alopecia. The harmful effects of chemical relaxers weren’t widely understood at this time, but Brooks’ exposure to this side of hair care made her rethink her role in the industry. “We didn’t have the knowledge that we have now that chemicals and chemical relaxers were very damaging,” she says. “I just knew that I didn’t want my people [losing hair and] trying to get their hair back.”
She began to build a dedicated clientele requesting braids (which she mastered with the help of Fatou Jangum), micro braids, locs, and more. And while Brooks’ work spoke for itself, her clients began to question her true commitment to natural hair.
“A few clients who were committed to me were like, ‘Okay, when are you going to practice what you preach?’ Like, you can’t be doing natural hair and you have relaxed hair,” Brooks recalls.
She took her clients’ remarks to heart. In order to inspire and teach, she needed to become an expert in her own hair.
“People got to be able to visually see me become and be what I was selling,” she says. “At the end of they day they were in a space where they were wanting information. There wasn’t a whole lot of us out here giving the information, or who could even translate the information because we didn’t know what was happening in this community that was being built.”
Brooks grew her natural hair out and “embraced what she was transitioning to become. … I haven’t had a relaxer since 1999,” she says.
As natural hair became a mainstay in both Brooks’ life and the Black community, it beckoned to be celebrated. Brooks notes when more people saw the versatility of their hair in its natural state it called them to try different updos and styles. The movement had come a long way culturally, but societally it still faced obstacles. While women and men have celebrated their manes for years, systemic inequities halted progress in the world at large.
Be Who You Are
Brooks calls the early reception of natural hair in the workplace “very discriminatory.” She remembers having clients coming in to get their natural hair styled but opting to throw on a wig because they had a job interview to prepare for. “For a long time that was a big thing, and I realized that was something I had to learn how to help these women become comfortable with — being who they are,” Brooks says.
Her salon became a source of empowerment as she helped women take on a world that had misconstrued ideas about what professionalism looked like. But these charges weren’t germane to her salon, nor her clientele.
One of the stories crucial to understanding Brooks’ legacy as a changemaker is told with the help of her oldest daughter, Destini Berry (25).
Growing up in a salon provided Berry the opportunity to not only be in a space where she was surrounded by women that looked like her, but where they were praised for their individuality. Without these experiences, she says, she may have had an “identity crisis.”
Berry recounts her childhood, saying she “had a lot of problems with her hair.” She was enrolled in a predominantly white school as a child, which impacted her concept of beauty. She was suffocated by the celebration of Eurocentric beauty standards and recalls believing that features such as “long, blond hair” were the desirable aesthetics — a stark contrast to her locs. “I didn’t see anybody that looked like me in the school.”
These comparisons followed her into her extracurriculars, as Berry was also enrolled in ballet. Ballet was something she adored, but it was always associated with the word “neat.” It seemed to be an aspirational word to describe movement, technique, and, of course, appearance.
Her instructor didn’t deem Berry’s locs appropriate for a recital and told her she wouldn’t be allowed to dance unless her hair was changed. Berry remembers crying, thinking she would have to cut her hair off in order to adhere to the ballet school’s standards. However, through this, her mother was at her side and fought for her to dance with her locs in place. Ultimately, Berry was allowed to do just that.
“My mom was awesome in that situation,” Berry says. “She fought for me and she really explained discrimination to me at a young age, being profiled that young and not understanding the magnitude of that situation. Now that I am an adult, I appreciate how my mom handled it.”
While Brooks believes Berry’s story is her own to tell (she even wrote a book about it, titled I Just Kept Spinning), it marks a moment in which she stood her ground. This tale is symbolic of Brooks’ role as a mother, but it also shows her passion for change and fighting for people. Berry’s right to dance sparked a conversation, and it served as an opportunity for the community to reassess what was deemed “professional” and “neat.”
“That created a sense of respect, for me, as an impactful leader in the community,” Brooks says. “Not only taking up for my daughter, but exposing people to the fact that my daughter has natural hair, someone just tried to stop my daughter from being who she was naturally, and basically telling her. ‘It’s something wrong with you.’ How dare you tell someone that? Especially a child?”
Through advocating for her daughter, Brooks gained the wherewithal and knowledge to teach her clients about what discrimination looked like.
“I’m telling these Black women, ‘Hey this is what’s happening.’ This [was] me educating Black women about what discrimination is against natural hair, especially in the workplace.”
In an effort to further advocate for the community at large, in 2012 Brooks founded the Naturals In The City Hair and Wellness Expo in Memphis. “It was a community awareness event for the then-growing natural hair movement, educating and celebrating natural hair and wellness enthusiasts,” Brooks says. “It included classes, a vendor market, positive pageants, fashion, brunches, and more. It introduced and exposed small businesses that served a need and local and national experts who educated attendees on proper hair care, product knowledge, mental health practices, and healthy food and wellness options.”
Brooks often receives requests to revive the expo. She says it served its purpose then, but she has ideas about how it can serve those in the future.
Change and Growth
A lot has changed in the way society reveres and respects natural hair since then. The CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Act was passed in Tennessee in 2022, which prohibits companies from discriminating against their employees based on their hairstyles. “I think that has helped with taming the discrimination against natural hair and how we wear our hair,” Brooks says.
Brooks’ career is also marked by change — and milestones of her contributions toward natural hair acceptance. But that journey has been more than hers alone.
“[It’s] not just the people whose hair I’ve done, but also all the people I have encountered and all the people who come in and have worked under me, who have learned and grown in their own ways, which shows I’ve done what I’m supposed to do as a leader.”
The opening of A Natural Affair 15 years ago was Brooks’ transition into business ownership, and even with the remarkable success of her salon thus far, she knows there’s more work to be done.
“I really haven’t talked about the space where I am now,” Brooks says. “I say it all the time, ‘Yes I’m retired from behind the chair, but I’m still working’ — it’s not one of those things where I’m sitting back with my feet kicked up.”
Brooks received her educator’s training from Empire Beauty School in 2016, which allowed her to help “mold emerging students to professional and knowledgeable natural hair professionals.” In 2017 Brooks became an educator for Design Essentials Haircare after being recommended by Emmitt Bracey, Mid-South regional distributor for the brand. She later worked in educator roles at the Natural Hair Industry Convention under leader Susan Peterkin, and recently at the Bronner Bros. International Beauty Show, the largest gathering of multicultural beauty professionals in the U.S.
In 2022, A Natural Affair became the first salon to be a signature partner with Memphis Shelby County Schools’ College, Career, and Technical Education cosmetology program, through which students gain career training and experience via work study while also attending school during the day. Students are able to earn their cosmetology license in high school.
Today, Brooks continues mentoring and teaching the stylists at her salon, and through her work, inspires new generations of aspiring cosmetologists and hair enthusiasts.
Brooks lists a number of key players in her success, including her family, clients, and Mae Smith, owner of Essentials Beauty Supply, who gave her her first set of supplies when she was 20 years old. “She told me to come back and pay her when I start making money. I did just that, and I make sure I support her beauty supply to this day.”
“What I’ve gained from having A Natural Affair is that the more I have had it, the more it reveals to me and what I’m supposed to be doing, and how I’m supposed to be helping,” Brooks says. “It went from just being me to now having over 15 people working for me.”
And there’s no telling how many children come through the salon and are inspired in the same way she was in her youth.
Anyone who has been paying attention to hot-button issues in law enforcement is aware that the matter of incarcerated inmates with mental illnesses is one of them — and one of the most complex as well.
Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ ongoing proposal to build an expansive new facility to house and treat those prisoners is one response — and the mayor has come in for much praise for it, especially since he intends to proceed without asking for a tax increase, by accessing federal ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds received by the county at the height of the Covid epidemic.
And Sheriff Floyd Bonner had indicated lately that he was on the verge of issuing an RFP (request for proposal) to local medical facilities for establishing an inpatient treatment program for the most severely impaired, those inmates who have been formally adjudged by the courts to be incompetent to stand trial.
It is such inmates, languishing in jail as a de facto permanent population, who have been the source of numerous disturbances and highly publicized unsanitary behavior noted by the news media and would-be reformers alike. And they are a primary reason for Bonner’s recent decision to back away from supervising youthful offenders to focus on hard-core issues among adult offenders.
As it happens, Bonner is the custodian not only of such issues but of some $2.7 million in allocated and unspent funds for dealing with them, and in testimony last week at the county commission’s committee sessions had floated the idea of the aforementioned RFP.
That money, largely derived from a settlement from drug companies and manufacturers involved in the proliferation of opioids, was set aside by the county as a replacement of sorts for a similar sum originally budgeted in 2022 at the behest of former County Commissioner Van Turner for treatment of those inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial by reason of their impairment.
Much of that original outlay ended up, however, being routed into the coffers of the county’s specialty courts (tribunals focused on drugs, veterans, and, in the most general sense, those with mental health conditions). Some of it was destined for CAAP (Cocaine and Alcohol Awareness Program), where it could be put to useful ends, but not for the original purpose of inpatient treatment of the most seriously incapacitated inmates.
Meanwhile County Commissioner Erika Sugarmon sponsored a resolution that became a core part of the agenda at this commission’s regular public meeting Monday night. She apparently proposed routing another $500,000 to CAAP from the currently available funding stock of $2,700,000.
David Upton, a spokesperson for the original funding plan, which envisioned an inpatient program, made an impassioned plea to retain the $500,000 in the sheriff’s budget.
At one point in the commission’s discussion of the resolution, Commissioner Mick Wright allowed as how he was doing his best to comprehend the overriding issue but was having trouble understanding what funds were available and for what purpose.
He doubtless spoke for many who had difficulty following the money and the competing claimants for it. Ultimately the commission deferred voting on the resolution and will try to unravel the complications of the matter at its next meeting.
The University of Memphis is leading the way for the city’s future in autonomous trucks.
U of M will receive a $750K grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for phase one of its Center for Electrified and Automated Trucking (CEAT), per an announcement from U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (TN-9). The program will be under the direction of civil engineering professor Sabya Mishra.
“Electrified vehicles are the future and it’s very encouraging that the University of Memphis will be contributing to the science that will be driving the trucking industry forward,” Cohen said in a statement.
The Center for Transportation Innovations Education and Research (C-TIER) at the university was awarded a planning grant by NSF for an Industry-University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC) in 2022 for CEAT. The university will collaborate with Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.
When this was announced, the university said it would “apply knowledge in emerging technologies in connected, electrified and autonomous trucking and freight logistics networks for achieving efficient, safe, agile and sustainable supply chain systems.”
According to CEAT, it hopes to find solutions to driver shortage and training, driver fatigue, supply chain delays and disruptions and more.
“The automation, electrification, and connected operation of trucks can help resolve many current issues associated with the trucking industry, including driver shortage, supply-chain disruptions, delivery service delays, emissions, and road safety,” CEAT said. “As significant research efforts in vehicle automation and electrification are now enabling large commercial ventures, more focused research is needed on how freight transport and logistics providers can best utilize such technologies to modernize the trucking industry.”
When the university received the $5 million grant from NSF, Mishra said the freight transportation, supply chain, and logistic industries were seeing growth as a result of “new technological innovations,” and more, such as artificial intelligence.
These advancements not only help vehicles to function without human operation, but it could also make trucking safer and provide solutions to the country’s supply chain issue.
In his research, Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, published in tandem with Ahmadreza Talebian of Isfahan University of Technology, Mishra noted these vehicles already arrived “faster than initial expectations,” and the trucking industry could benefit from the use of this technology.
“One major user of the automated driving technology would be the trucking industry. The automated driving technology can impact the trucking industry and freight transportation system in a more revolutionary manner, compared to passenger car users,” the study said.
While the study acknowledges that these trucks would be able to surpass the US Department of Transportation’s (US DOT)’s regulations on how long a driver can drive (11 hours), this could potentially lead to increased levels in noise pollution and emissions. However they also note certain trucks “could have the same impact but probably to a lower extent” as highly automated trucks driven by a driver.
These vehicles, while seemingly helpful, prompt questions about their safety. In March, AAA released a survey which stated 66 percent of U.S. drivers expressed “fear” regarding driverless technology.
While the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said there are currently no vehicles that are officially “driverless,” they claim automation’s “biggest benefit” is safety.
“In some circumstances, automated technologies may be able to detect the threat of a crash and act faster than drivers,” NTSA said. “These technologies could greatly support drivers and reduce human errors and the resulting crashes, injuries, and economic tolls.”
Myles Wilson stands outside Somerville Elementary School on Thurs., May 16, 2024 in Fayette County, Tennessee. The school, which was predominantly white, was closed in 2014 to comply with a 1965 desegregation order. (Tonyaa Weathersbee / Chalkbeat)
As in many school districts across the South, where segregation was once the law, it took protests and a court order to desegregate public schools in Fayette County, Tennessee.
That order came nearly a dozen years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which declared legally mandated racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.
Fayette County, a place where new homes are sprouting like spring grass in towns on its outskirts, is still operating under the 1965 order. The order has led to racially integrated schools, with Black and white students proportionally represented in most of the four elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Growing numbers of Hispanic students are also enrolling, and the current superintendent, Versie Ray Hamlett, is Black.
That’s a vast change from what 78-year-old Myles Wilson, a former Fayette County school superintendent and now a school board member, faced in 1963, when he was reading hand-me-down books at all-Black Fayette County Training School.
“The textbooks were terrible,” Wilson recalled. “Sometimes, entire pages would be destroyed. I guess they were tearing pages out because they knew they would be passed down to us.”
But, Wilson added, “We’ve made some great strides. We’ve had seven Black superintendents since 1984.”
Yet Wilson said he and other members of the community are worried that progress, so hard won, could erode once a new consent decree that the Justice Department issued in 2023 is satisfied – and the 1965 court order is lifted.
“A lot of Blacks feel like we shouldn’t be released from the consent decree, because they’ll go back to the old way, because that’s what’s happened in the rest of the country,” he said.
Many school districts across the country still have racially segregated schools, and school segregation has increased in the last three decades.
Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University and Ann Owens, a University of Southern California sociologist, released a study this month showing how an increase in school segregation has been driven by two factors: school districts being released from court oversight and an expansion in school choice policies, particularly the spread of charter schools.
That follows what Reardon and researchers at Stanford found in a 2012 study. According to their analysis, school districts released from desegregation orders in the two decades after 1990 began to resegregate. Ones that continued to be under judicial oversight did not.
“These results suggest that court-ordered desegregation plans are effective in reducing racial school segregation, but that their effects fade over time in the absence of continued court oversight,” the abstract said.
Fayette County’s long fight for civil rights
In Fayette County, the original court order to desegregate the schools was part of a protracted battle for civil rights, one that the New York Times described in 1969 as the “longest sustained civil rights protest in the nation.”
It began in 1959, when John McFerren and Harpman Jameson, both farmers and World War II veterans, attended the trial of Burton Dodson, a Black man who was accused of murder and had escaped a lynch mob.
McFerren and Jameson learned that because few Blacks were registered to vote, it would be impossible for Dodson to get a jury that wasn’t all-white. At the urging of Dodson’s lawyer, James Estes, McFerren and Jameson began to register Black sharecroppers to vote – a move that resulted in many of them being evicted by their white landlords.
Evicted families pitched tents on the outskirts of Somerville, the Fayette County seat, and activists from around the nation joined them.
The tent city disbanded in 1962 after the Justice Department sued the landowners, and the courts ordered them to stop interfering in the rights of Black people to vote or run for office. But the fight for racial justice was far from over – as Wilson would learn.
After graduating from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1967, Wilson was hired as a teacher at Fayette County Training School, arriving two years after the court order. He later sued the school system when he and all the single, Black male teachers were fired to prevent them from teaching white girls, he said.
The teachers were reinstated, and Wilson would file other lawsuits over the years to fight racial injustice in the system.
With his own battles for racial justice and desegregation behind him, Wilson fears that without the court order, Fayette County could backslide.
While the school district has satisfied many of the requirements of the court order, the new consent decree requires, among other things, that school officials work with the Justice Department and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to “develop an effective and sustainable student assignment policy to further desegregation in its schools.”
More white families are moving from Memphis to Oakland, a town in Fayette County, and demands are growing for a new high school there – even though the county’s only high school, Fayette-Ware High School, is under capacity, he said.
The school can accommodate 1,300 students, Wilson said, but currently enrolls about 833. Of those, 61% are Black, and 30% are white. He fears that the addition of a new high school could drive segregation.
Wilson also fears that the recent push for universal vouchers by Republican lawmakers – a battle that Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to revive next year – could also erode desegregation progress in Fayette County by giving families public dollars to enroll children in private schools.
One private school in the county, Fayette Academy, was established as an all-white school in 1965, as the desegregation order was handed down. In 1971, U.S. District Judge Robert McRae, whose orders led to school desegregation in Memphis and later upheld busing, called the school “a beautiful building sitting on top of a hill as a monument against the black people.”
The private Christian school remains predominantly white.
Daphene McFerren, daughter of John McFerren and whose brother John McFerren Jr. was one of the original plaintiffs in the desegregation lawsuit, said that if the order is lifted, it doesn’t have to mean the end of progress.
“I don’t want to speculate on where this can end up, because who knows?” said McFerren, who is the executive director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.
But, McFerren said, the fact that the school district is abiding by the consent decree means they are cooperating.
“That should be acknowledged,” she said. “But we should be vigilant in that the goal of this is to eradicate any form of discrimination where it exists in the education of our children.”
McFerren, however, described it as a “Catch-22″ situation. Satisfying the consent decree should mean that the district has met its desegregation goals. But will the district continue to maintain those goals once the mechanism forcing it to do so is gone?
“Well, as I always say, a case can always be reopened,” McFerren said.
Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
