Author: Les Smith

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Opinion Viewpoint

Memphis’ Truancy “Crisis”

Call me skeptical, but I think it’s really time for Memphis to move on from the Ebola “crisis” to issues that are more based in reality. We are very unlikely to be hit by an epidemic of what is no doubt a dreadful disease if you’re living in or have visited three countries in West Africa recently.

But the one lone Ebola-related story I’ve covered did open my eyes to the precautions the Shelby County Health Department and the Office of Preparedness have been taking to assure the safety of our citizens. Since the 9-11 attacks, local government agencies have worked diligently to organize a program of preparedness to deal with catastrophic natural disasters and health epidemics — from swine flu to SARS to the one-in-a-million possibility of an Ebola outbreak in the Bluff City. Such advance planning should be commended.

But it’s time to bring the same level of attention to a more relevant crisis — student truancy — and the direct connection it has to our problems with youth violence.

As Shelby County Schools Superintendent Dorsey Hopson asserted two weeks ago in an interview with Fox 13, he stands prepared to tackle the truancy issue by withholding financial benefits from parents who have consistently failed to meet their responsibilities in getting their children to school. He admitted punitive action is not a road he wants to go down, but he’s also realistic enough to know he’s got to have the legal backing and the political will of those in government to take a proactive stance.

Within the past two weeks, SCS has finally begun getting a numerical grasp on the atrocious situation of children not showing up in the classroom this year. They estimated the number, peaking at the start of the school year in August, to be around 9,000 students. By late September, nearly 4,000 students had met or exceeded the five-day threshold of unexcused absences. If reported to the district attorney’s office, parents of these children could presumably face fines and possible jail time. So far, only one person has been prosecuted under that standard, but it’s not like student truancy is a new problem.

Just two years ago, the legacy Memphis City Schools system was lauded for creating truancy assessment centers where truants were picked up by police and, together with their parents, made to work with school officials to find ways of getting them back to school. Because of budget cuts, that program no longer exists. Perhaps, if the city of Memphis, as cash-strapped as it may be, could start paying on the $57 million that two court rulings have explicitly made clear is owed to SCS, there would be enough money to restart and expand that now-defunct program.

Here’s where we get back to that idea of “preparedness.” We have for a decade and beyond known this city and county have a propensity for failing to meet the minimal educational needs of all its students. We have never had the foresight to devise a comprehensive plan that puts more money into all aspects of education than we consistently put into the penal system or into security measures aimed at dealing with possible health epidemics and natural catastrophes. Yet, there seems to be no concerted effort to address and follow through on tough choices that could bring real results in saving generations of children who continue to fall through the cracks in our educational system.

It may well be time to get behind Hopson’s idea of making parents financially accountable for not meeting their responsibilities, time to stand behind the line he wants to draw in the sand. Instead of pitying those parents for their negligence, because they’re not informed about the avenues of help available to them, we should insist and demand they take the time to find out for themselves. We should insist they show up at a parent/teacher conference, a PTA meeting, or even a school board meeting. They owe it to the future of their own families to do so, just like every other forward-thinking person in this country. I’ll predict right now nobody in Memphis is going to die from Ebola. But, there’s a good chance we’ll perish from the disease of neglecting the education of our children.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Hot Water in Memphis

It was one of those drop-the-microphone, Elvis-has-left-the-building moments that Memphis City Council meetings can sometimes produce: A frustrated councilwoman, Wanda Halbert, verbally blasted stoic Memphis Light Gas & Water President Jerry Collins with an observation that sounded familiar. During a discussion about the city-owned, nonprofit power company’s fees, Halbert said, “Memphis Light Gas & Water belongs to the city of Memphis. It doesn’t belong to Memphis Light Gas & Water. It feels like it does not belong to the City of Memphis. It’s almost like, somehow, you all have evolved into an island of your own!” She then exited the room without waiting for a response. No rebuttal was needed and none came.

Almost the exact description of MLGW’s operational procedures was uttered by our former “forever king,” Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton more than a decade ago. In 2003, Herenton roared, “MLGW is an island unto itself,” in accusing the utility of being wasteful and inaccessible to the needs of customers. Six years earlier, Herenton had tried mightily to convince council members to sell off what is universally acknowledged as the city’s most profitable asset.

Former Flyer columnist John Branston chronicled the story in great detail. Herenton hired a Philadelphia consultant named Rotan Lee, who, for the nice round figure of $150,000, produced a study of the utility’s effectiveness — making a case for privatizing all or parts of the utility, estimated at the time to be worth $800 to $850 million. Lee tried to make the case that community-owned utility companies could no longer be “natural monopolies” in a world where federal deregulation of utilities was becoming the norm. Lee concluded that such utility companies would, in the end, “lose the crucible of good will with their customer base.” In hindsight, Lee’s prediction would appear to rival those of Nostradamus.

Distrust of the utility’s intentions only heightened, when, just after receiving the tongue-lashing from Halbert and other skeptical members of the council, MLGW officials announced they would propose a 2 percent hike in residential water rates to make up for revenue projected to be lost when the Cargill company closes its corn-milling plant on Presidents Island in January 2015. MLGW officials said that Cargill accounted for 5 percent

of the water sold by the utility, leaving a $4 million revenue shortfall to make up. There had been no mention of the rate hike in the council meeting just two days earlier.

To add insult to injury, Cargill is walking away — without any financial penalty — on the four years that remain on a PILOT property tax freeze agreement issued by the city and county in 2010.

What should be even more worrying for MLGW customers is the fact that Roland McElrath is the man behind the plan for the utility’s proposed rate hike. McElrath became the utility company’s controller in 2012 after resigning his post, for the second time, as the city of Memphis finance director. This is the same career numbers-cruncher who, in 2011, assured city council members Memphis could afford to give its city employees Christmas bonuses because of a surplus created by cost-saving measures enacted during the prior fiscal year.

After the council passed a $6.2 million Santa offering, a sheepish McElrath recalculated. Oops. There was actually a $6 million deficit — a shortfall that later ballooned to $17 million — that required the council to dip into dwindling city reserves to cover the overall deficit. This should give all of us, particularly those struggling to pay their bills each month, plenty of reason for pause when it comes to MLGW’s plan to offset lost Cargill revenue.

When most companies lose a valued client, they don’t take it out on the good customers that remain with them. They buckle down and try harder to keep them happy. As MLGW customers, we appreciate the employees’ hard work and dedication whenever power outages hit the city. We appreciate their charity work. We appreciate their moratoriums on bill payments in extreme weather conditions. However, it’s their perceived arrogance and take-it-or-leave-it autonomy that spawns tirades like Halbert’s. Taxpayers pay the hefty salaries of the utility’s management. Aren’t we owed an open accounting of their billing procedures, rather than being suddenly blindsided with a rate hike?

Don’t we all live on the same island?

Les Smith is a reporter for WHBQ Fox-13 News.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Dubious Justice in Shelby County

Just based on his dubious record of courtroom failures, Erle Stanley Gardner’s literary fictional prosecutor, Hamilton Burger, the tenacious but inept antagonist of the brilliant defense attorney Perry Mason, wouldn’t seem to have been seen as an icon of jurisprudence. Yet, despite all his embarrassing setbacks as a Los Angeles district attorney, the author still respected Burger enough to label him as being a “stubborn, but honest” public servant in the pursuit of justice.

However, it was Burger’s errors in judgment that came to mind as the Tennessee Supreme Court again ruled in favor of a retrial for a convicted Shelby County inmate sentenced to the state’s death row.

In 2009, I reported on the gruesome double murder trial in the deaths of an elderly Bartlett couple, Clarence and Lillian James, at the hands of sadistic drifter, Henry Lee Jones. The evidence against Jones was overwhelming. He befriended the unsuspecting duo before tying them up, strangling both, and then slashing their throats. It took a jury only three hours to come back with two first-degree murder verdicts.

In overturning the verdicts, the Tennessee justices noted a trial error by former Shelby County Criminal Court Judge John Colton in allowing prosecutors Tom Henderson and John Campbell to tell jurors of Jones’ alleged killing of a 19-year-old man in Florida, just days before the Bartlett murders. They tried to link the cases together in an effort to show the details of the Bartlett deaths indicated the style of “signature crime” Jones committed in Florida. The justices didn’t agree with the comparison, declaring it was too prejudicial to have been introduced at trial.

The Jones case becomes one of four murder convictions now requiring retrials that were judicially kicked back into the lap of the Shelby County District Attorney General’s office within the space of less than a year.

In December 2013, the state justices reprimanded Henderson, a 38-year veteran Shelby County prosecutor, for withholding evidence in the 1998 trial of convicted murderer Michael Rimmer. Rimmer was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend, Ricci Ellsworth, in a case in which her body was never found after disappearing from her work as a motel clerk. Henderson, as the lead prosecutor, was cited for not divulging to the defense that another witness had seen a different man at the crime scene where Ellsworth was last seen. A lead detective was also accused of providing false testimony. However, despite the high court’s ruling, Henderson was not reprimanded or censured by his boss, Attorney General Amy Weirich.

In 1999, Robert Faulkner was convicted and sent to death row after bludgeoning his wife with a skillet during a domestic dispute. At the time of the trial Faulkner showed no remorse, earning the nickname “Skillet” after telling homicide investigators his spouse got what she deserved. Only, this year, it was discovered that the foreman of the jury that convicted Faulkner had intentionally withheld the fact she herself had been a victim of domestic abuse. With a tainted jury, the justices had no recourse but to overturn the conviction and order a new trial.

Also expected to be retried is Noura Jackson, convicted of stabbing her mother Jennifer Jackson 50 times at their home in 2009. But, the justices decided that conviction was tainted by several legal irregularities, including another withholding of evidence charge, this time leveled against Weirich, who was the lead prosecutor at the Jackson trial.

I’m not naïve enough to think that in a county where prosecutors have sent three times as many people to death row as any other county in Tennessee, the majority of the convicted don’t deserve to be where they are. But, I have heard from more than one defense attorney in Memphis that the current atmosphere in this district attorney’s office is “win at all costs.”

The mistakes made in the cases of Henry Lee Jones and Robert Faulkner might be ruled “technicalities,” but the flagrant withholding of evidence is not only disturbing, it’s at best, unethical, at worst, criminal. The district attorneys are supposed to be beacons of the law. Their misbehavior means putting families of the victims through the agony of reliving the gory details of the heinous deaths of their loved ones. And that’s not to mention the many thousands of dollars it costs taxpayers to retry these cases.

I respect stubbornness, but we should never pursue convictions at the expense of surrendering justice for all. Even a perennial loser like Hamilton Burger understood that.

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News News Feature

Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

It’s not the kind of remembrance people like to attach to those we historically have deemed as heroic martyrs.

A man so disconsolate over what his critics and he himself viewed as abject failure, lying in a Memphis motel room bed, fully clothed, weeping and unable to move for 13 hours. Yet, in his book Death of a King, political commentator and talk-show host, Tavis Smiley, paints a sincere and honest picture of civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a man whose human frailties are put to the test in the final year of his life — in a struggle to regain lost prestige, popularity, and his own moral compass.

Beginning with his controversial Riverside Church speech in New York, delivered one year to the day before his assassination in Memphis, King attempted to lay out a new direction for the nonviolent movement he had fostered. With monumental civil rights legislation already on the books, King wanted to expand the scope and participation of the fight against what he saw as the interconnected triad of poverty, racism, and militarism that he felt was tearing away at the fabric of America during the height of the Vietnam War era.

It was an effort to expand on the coalition, which had proven so successful in winning the hearts and minds of those previously drawn to the civil rights movement. But, like others who’ve risen to great heights of leadership on oratory or sheer will, King unwittingly allowed himself to become more insulated from what was going on around him.

Smiley’s book deftly portrays King as a man on a treadmill. No matter how fast he tried to run, everything and everyone in his life was still passing him by, and he couldn’t understand why. He was the same. But, the rest the nation, which he once briefly held in the palm of his hand, had moved on in fractious directions, including his own previous inner circle at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).

In Smiley’s book, one of King’s greatest disconnects was with women, and most importantly, his wife, the long-suffering Coretta Scott King. When they first met when both were in their early 20s, King openly admired her not just for her stunning beauty, but also because she became the most strident and unflinching supporter of his nonviolent strategy. Once they started having children, however, King encouraged her to be more subservient, while at the same time he continued his dalliances with other women. So, entrenched in his chauvinistic attitude, King initially rebuked his colleague James Bevel’s suggestion to all male members of the SCLC and other black ministers to tell their wives about their affairs with other women. According to Smiley, King finally did come clean with Mrs. King about one affair, which he told her he put an end to.

I also was drawn to the turbulent final month of King’s life, when it came to how the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike had become a cause celebre’ with him despite warnings from his SCLC inner circle, including apparently Jesse Jackson, that the issues in Memphis were “small potatoes” and not worth getting involved in. But, coming in a year in which he’d been booed off stages, and he was jeered and ridiculed as out of touch with his own people, the reception King received in coming to Memphis was reinvigorating. Memphis had become to him the potential springboard for his still not fleshed out idea of having a “Poor People’s March on Washington.” He viewed it as a golden opportunity to reestablish the nonviolent movement as a viable form of effective protest.

However, as he did through most of that tumultuous final year of his life, King miscalculated, believing the power of his persona alone could bring together divisive factions. The ensuing riot on Beale Street in March of 1968 devastated him enough to seek refuge in a room at the former Rivermont Hotel. King would regroup. His unwavering faith in his mission would allow him to do no less. But, days later, a bullet would be unforgiving.

I applaud Smiley for his determined and compassionate attempt to humanize a man so many authors before have either lionized or demonized. The book provides a lesson, a study in our own mortality. It encourages us to never be so self-assured, so defiant in the face of unwelcomed truth, or so tunnel-visioned about what we believe is right that we ignore the sage counsel of friends and neglect the love and support of family.

For all of us, even the greatest among us, are only mere mortals in the end.

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News The Fly-By

Governor Nero

His full name was Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. But, in recorded world history, the tyrannical Roman Emperor “Nero” is infamously known for having “fiddled while Rome burned.” Nero’s apparent indifference was actually motivated by his own selfish purpose, which was to have the prolific fire clear land so he could build a new palatial estate. It did just that, but it was also responsible for taking thousands of lives in the process. Strangely enough, even before and after the great catastrophe, historians have noted the narcissistic Nero, for the majority of his 14-year reign, still managed to enjoy an inexplicable popularity among the common people of Rome.

Of course, no one would even begin to compare the despicable Roman dictator to the affable and fair-minded Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam, except in the sense that both have enjoyed surprising popularity for what many might view as no apparent reason. Yet, when it comes to the thousands of Tennesseans who lack health care, Haslam’s dallying on addressing their needs by delaying the presentation of a plan on expanding Medicaid coverage is as damaging to the uninsured as Nero’s great fire was to the demise of common Romans.

Late last week, Haslam coyly hinted he may be nearing the release of a unique “Tennessee” plan for expanded health-care coverage for the more than 100,000-plus people who’ve slipped through the cracks of the state’s TennCare system.

All of us, including those lucky enough to have some type of medical insurance, know someone who doesn’t have any: A single mother of three; an elderly friend on a fixed income; a family that worries that every bout of flu-like symptoms is going to lead to a health condition that might worsen and require medical care.

In reporting on Haslam’s negotiations with the federal government, I spoke last week with one of Memphis’ foremost health-care experts, Scott Morris, CEO of the Church Health Center. He labeled as “immoral” the fact that “states on the west side of the Mississippi River, such as Arkansas, now have established health-care exchanges, while those living east of the river continue to struggle without care.”

Not all states have put on their political blinders to the opportunity that’s being offered by the Affordable Care Act. In Kentucky, where previously 600,000 people were uninsured, more than 400,000 have enrolled for Medicaid under the state’s “Kynect” program. The rest are choosing among state-approved insurance plans and can compare monthly premiums and other costs like co-pays. In the process, 17,000 new medical jobs are projected to be created, with a positive economic impact to the state of nearly $16 billion over the next six years. Despite all the negative propaganda spread by those opposed to the exchanges, the federal program pays 100 percent for a state’s coverage expansion for the first three years and gradually reduces to 90 percent by the year 2020. What’s provided judicial cover on the issue for reluctant state participants, such as Tennessee, is the United States Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling that governors and lawmakers could opt out of widening their Medicaid rosters. The Tennessee General Assembly immediately jumped on the loophole and passed a measure assuring they will have final approval of any expansion plan.

All of this squarely puts the onus of leadership on this issue on our state’s version of Nero. Haslam most assuredly will be returned to the governorship in November, but his record on taking decisive stances in his first four years has been spotty at best, despite his popularity numbers. He voiced only words of caution in the titanic Memphis and Shelby County school merger issue. As numerous gun carrying bills floated through the legislature, his public opposition was passive. On health care, he’s babbled what I’ve often called benign “Haslamese.” He wants to help the uninsured, but it’s got to be cost effective and it has to pass what will be formidable opposition in the legislature. If he indeed does come up with a plan, it won’t be easy to pass. Haslam will have to use the bully-pulpit of his elected position, and his popularity, to do the right thing, or at least try.

I ask you, governor, what is your legacy now? What do you want it to be?

Nero “fiddled” and Rome burned. Men, women, children — black, white, and brown — in Tennessee are trapped in the fiery hell of having to ignore pain and suffering and serious diseases with no way to afford medical coverage. Governor, quit fiddling, and please do something to help.

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News The Fly-By

Learning From Ferguson

Almost seven years ago, I stood under a clear, blue September sky in Jena, Louisiana, as more than 20,000 African Americans flooded the streets of that rustic community in protest of the conviction of six teenagers for the alleged beating of a white student at the town’s high school. I thought then, in 2007, that that demonstration of unity of purpose might lead to a new awakening of social consciousness in America regarding race relations. It didn’t.

Five years later, I was reporting on the daily demonstrations of outrage in Memphis in reaction to the shooting death in Florida of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, George Zimmerman. The outpouring of tears, outrage, and disgust at the fact that Martin’s “stereotypical” hoodie served as a catalyst for his being targeted by the overzealous wanna-be cop seemed universal — an appalled response from the majority of the general public. Surely, I thought, this would be the incident that would sustain a national dialogue about race, false perceptions, and tainted justice and result in sweeping positive social upheaval in the name of equality. It didn’t.

So, pardon me if the prospect of people taking to the streets of Memphis this week to demonstrate solidarity with those mourning the loss of 18-year-old Michael Brown in a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, strikes me as a hollow gesture — especially since we’ve got so much work left to do in addressing the plight of African-American youth here in Memphis. It’s blasphemous to focus on a tragedy 300 miles away when we should be concentrating on the atrocities within our own city. It doesn’t take much to know where to begin.

As I reported on television last week, there are an estimated 10,000 students who have not yet enrolled in school in Shelby County. Because of confusion regarding the various municipal, private, charter, and state-run achievement district school systems, clarity about who is going where might be a little muddled, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that thousands of students are apparently not in school anywhere. The SCS superintendent and school board members are only now, two weeks into the educational year, deciding to push parental procrastinators into action to get their children in classrooms through a series of radio and television ads.

Since when did getting a basic education become an option? There are laws on the books about the penalties parents can face because of their children’s truancy. Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich stands ready to enforce them. Let’s take her up on her word to do so. You can’t tell me there’s not a direct correlation between school truants and the youth violence in our streets. In the month between July 13th and August 13th, Memphis police responded to 27 shooting incidents involving juveniles. The youngest victim was 12. Apparently, these incidents have caught the attention of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton who now wants to call a summit to discuss ways to stop the violence.

Though I have my doubts, I hope the mayor isn’t content in this situation to surround himself with “yes men” who are going to give him a false sense that the city is doing all it can to turn around this distressing tide. If the city truly wants to help, it should join the D.A.’s office in cracking down hard on truancy. Join with the schools in reaching out to young girls to teach them that making babies out of wedlock is not a career path. Have MPD hold seminars to stress to young black males the less-than-attractive alternatives of imprisonment or death that could come from living the life of a “gangsta.” If you want to call it “scared straight” or some snappier title, it doesn’t matter. Just do it.

As history has proven, marches and public demonstrations of concern are usually after-the-fact reactions — too little, too late. We shouldn’t have to march in memory of our slain youth, not when we can be proactive in giving our children a fighting chance to succeed through education. You can’t bring Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown back. But we, and the leaders of our community, can do our utmost to work toward making sure their deaths and the temporary unity of purpose their tragedies generated were not in vain, at least not here in Memphis.

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News The Fly-By

Ramsey’s Reckless Campaign

Popeye the Sailor Man was one of my favorite cartoon characters as a child. I remember particularly fondly one of those “throwback” episodes where Popeye somehow found himself in the Old West facing his arch rival, Brutus, who had taken on the persona of the ruthless bully “Black Bart.” Brutus wore big pointy-toed black boots, which he used to mercilessly kick the crap out of the slow-to-anger Popeye, until he couldn’t take it anymore.

Of course, we all knew at some point, the battered, bruised, but not bowed Popeye, would reach for his spinach can and find the strength to dispatch his dastardly foe. And, just before he’d slog down his spinach, he’d say the immortal words that formed his life credo: “I am what I am, and that’s all that I am!”

Though his name is not on the ballot for Thursday’s August 7th election, the heavy hand of this state’s “Black Bart,” Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey can be seen everywhere. Wearing his famed black boots and armed with hundreds of thousands of dollars in PAC money, Ramsey is attempting to grind three respected members of the Tennessee Supreme Court into the dirt.

On this longest and largest ballot in the history of Shelby County, with so many conflicting and controversial candidates seeking election, I would urge all voters not to bypass what I believe is the most important selections we in Tennessee can make for our future. In a campaign that has been waged for months and filled with misinformation, false fears, and flat out lies, Ramsey has boldly attempted to destroy the character and integrity of current state Supreme Court Justices Connie Clark, Sharon Lee, and Chief Justice Gary Wade.

Why? Because, as Democrats appointed by former Governor Phil Bredesen, Ramsey thinks their retention thwarts his blatant attempt to pack the court with all Republican appointees, who will perhaps be more empathetic to the unbridled conservative agenda of the GOP-controlled Tennessee General Assembly.

At first, Ramsey was content to simply direct the political assault from the sidelines. However, recent financial disclosures have revealed he’s now used more than $400,000 from his personal action committee, compiled with the help of out-of-state conservative causes, to openly lead the fight against the trio of judges. Ramsey and his cohorts have unleashed a bombardment of political ads, without any presentation of proof, accusing the targeted justices of being soft on crime and the off-the-wall allegation they helped instigate Obamacare.

There are those of you who might not understand why I’m so adamant about supporting this trio of people you’ve probably never met, heard of, or read about during their tenure on the bench. As judges, protectors, and interpreters of state laws, retaining a low-key status is a great strength. Who wants “showboats” to be judges sitting on the highest court in Tennessee? Who wants the men and women who wear judicial robes to be flawed by their own personal biases or be so spineless they’d be willing to pander to the bullying of politicians?

Let me try to put it even more in perspective. With a Tennessee legislature determined to meddle in every aspect of citizens’ lives, from challenging federal abortion laws to drug-testing welfare recipients to jailing drug-afflicted mothers or passing more voter suppression measures, the chances of these hot-button issues falling into the laps of the justices becomes more than likely. And without the retention of Clark, Lee, and Wade and the narrow 3-to-2 margin they currently hold over Republican appointees, are we truly willing to roll the dice as to whom Governor Bill Haslam might choose to fill that trio’s slots as hand-picked by Ramsey?

This is not to say the other candidates you’ll be casting your votes for on Thursday don’t require serious consideration before you vote for them. I know many of you made up your minds months ago. This political campaign season has been one of the most unpredictable, shocking, and nastiest I’ve covered in my years as a reporter. I often wonder if we, as voters, deserve this. Unfortunately we seem to tolerate it more than we should.

But, remember Popeye’s simple adage: It’s about being secure in knowing who you are, accepting your own limitations, and embracing humility. It should be equally applicable to us and those we choose to elect.

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News The Fly-By

Where We Live Now

It was such a moronic statement that when it was blurted from a Memphis City Councilman’s mouth, I thought, “Is he for real?”

It was moments after the end of what had been a sadly disappointing council committee public hearing to listen to ideas about how to remedy the impasse created by the council’s vote to cut health care and pension benefits for city employees and retirees. As I scrambled to get interviews in the hallway to gather some perspective on what happened, the indignant councilman approached me, asking if I wanted to hear his solution to the whole problem. I said yes. He then declined to talk, instead cryptically uttering, “I know where you live.” He then smirked, walked away, and took the elevator down.

It would be easy — we in the media have done it before — to dismiss such an incident as just another cantankerous episode by this council veteran, rather than assume there was some attempt at personal intimidation involved. But, for some reason, as the day and the week went on, I really started to get angry about his remark and his audacity, as a black elected official, to level some “gangsta” innuendo at another African American.

It’s ironic that in the same month we commemorate President Lyndon Johnson’s signing of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill, Memphis continues to suffer from a crisis in African-American leadership — in politics, in economics, and in education.

I remember the euphoria the black community felt when Willie Herenton became the city’s first African-American mayor. Since then, we’ve had 23 consecutive years of an African American as the chief executive at City Hall, many black majorities on the council, numerous black police and fire directors, and 24 straight years of black school superintendents. Some accomplishments have been registered: tearing down aged blighted apartment complexes to restore hope where none had existed before. We got a new sports arena and a pro basketball team. Beale Street has become a world-wide tourist attraction, and the long-awaited Beale Street Landing riverfront project is finished, even if it was millions over budget.

But honestly, look in the mirror, black and white Memphians, and ask the same pertinent question that catapulted Ronald Reagan to the presidency: “Are you and your family any better off than you were four years ago … or 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?” Statistics, including 28 percent of Memphians black and white living below the national poverty level and consistently worse than the national average unemployment numbers, say a frightening number of Memphians are worse off. Our educational system is not a model for the nation. It’s a liability for those who might consider moving here. It’s no secret we’re losing population every year, unless we want to start annexing the fish in the Mississippi River.

Is it possible that in the Bluff City’s case, the 1964 Civil Rights Act hurt us as a race of people more than it helped us? After decades of blaming the white man for the ills of society, we African Americans were given the chance to govern not only ourselves, but everyone in Memphis and Shelby County. What have we gotten in return for our empowerment? We’ve given our officials the keys to our government and too many of them have interpreted it as a sense of entitlement. They sneer when asked simple questions about their residency. Constituent service has taken a backseat to grandstanding at public forums. We have endured too many banner headlines exposing their personal problems.

The Civil Rights Act was also supposed to make it possible, by ending segregation in schools, for our children to become a part of mainstream America. Unfortunately, in doing so, it sacrificed the pride and diligence of many black teachers who had dedicated their lives and love to making a difference in the classroom. It broke up communities where people once took it upon themselves to be their brother’s keeper and his family as well.

People such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ben Hooks, Maxine Smith, and many others in this city sacrificed much of their lives to see the day when the fight for equal rights would end in triumph. Now that fight needs to be changed and waged to use the power of the vote to find the right people to serve us — not be served — whether black or white.

By the way, councilman, I know where you live, too.

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News The Fly-By

In Shelby County, It’s Compromise or Fail

No deity in the world could have made two men more divergent in character and approach to life than my two grandfathers: Joe “Sam” Moore and Elgie Briscoe Tapp.

I have waxed philosophical before about the beliefs of Grandpa Tapp. Growing up in Nashville at the turn of the 20th century as a child of mixed race, he smartly recognized and silently endured racism as an inherent part of society. Among the stories of blatant racial discrimination he told me as an adolescent, he docilely got off the sidewalk when he passed a white man and never directly looked him in the eyes.

He was among those in the 1920s who migrated to Chicago, where it was believed employment opportunities for black men could be readily found. He spent the next 30 years in the Windy City, and prospered by using his wits, a dependable manufacturing job at making railroad cars, and excelling at the lucrative but illegal production of bathtub gin during the Prohibition Era.

He was eventually able to buy apartment properties and afford to sport natty all-white “Panama” or colorful “Zoot” suits. With a fifth-grade education, he at that point didn’t have to worry anymore how repugnant such outfits might be to white folks. But, his success never tempered his evolved belief that men of any color should always carry themselves with a class and dignity no amount of money could buy.

In contrast, for fire and passion in life, there was nobody like Joe. I didn’t meet him until my mother remarried after my biological father’s death when I was two. Unlike my light-skinned and green-eyed Grandpa Tapp, Grandpa Joe’s skin was coal black. He had dark, fiery eyes that when they locked in on you seemed to penetrate your very soul. He was a Missouri farmer who’d never been to any city. He was the undisputed and outspoken patriarch of 13 children. He was the same age as Grandpa Tapp, but he was harder, tougher, and possessed a sense of defiance that exuded from every pore of his being. He had never feared white men. He worked hard. He played hard. The only “suit” he ever knew was playing cards when he held court during combative games of bid whist with his adult children, or on rare occasions, when grandchildren like me were told to babysit hands until a player came back from the bathroom. Take it from me: Hearing him voicing his disdain for you at the table was to be avoided at all cost.

We approached their first-ever meeting with all the anticipation that heavyweight championship fights used to draw. Joe was expected to throw nothing but verbal haymakers. Grandpa Tapp was expected to duck and counter. Surely, there would be nothing these two men could ever agree on. Especially when the opening salvo from Joe included the phrase “Uncle Tom” in direct reference to Grandpa Tapp. Absorbing the shot, Grandpa Tapp immediately scurried to take the high ground by asking if Joe knew anything about the civil rights movement and a man named Martin Luther King Jr. Grandpa Joe sniffed, “He ain’t no farmer I’ve ever heard of.” As the only grandchild who opted to sit in on this summit, I knew this wasn’t going very well. But, when all seemed lost, it was Grandpa Joe, of all people, who found a common ground for discussion. He asked, “So Tapp, what are you planting this year? Wheat or corn?” Grandpa Tapp said, “What would you suggest?” Suddenly avenues of conversation were open.

There is common ground for all of us. There always has been. From whatever our backgrounds are, there have forever been platforms of unadulterated free thought and an exchange of ideas that remain untapped because of our own prejudices, self-interests, and political posturing. It’s led to our abject failure to listen to one another. Nobody wants those who have loyally served for years in Memphis public safety to feel betrayed. But, taxpayers in this city shouldn’t be financially burdened by the neglect of past city administrations. We have a problem in this city that’s no different than any other urban location in America. It’s communication. Be willing to give full consideration to the ideas and opinions of others without prejudice. Find a compromise.

Plant wheat or plant corn? Both have the potential for growth.

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News The Fly-By

Sounds of Silence in Memphis

As the band Pink Floyd once sang, “Hello, is there anybody out there?”

You know who you are. You’re that Memphis Midtown woman diligently working on her flower garden, just so you can make your home and the neighborhood look a little brighter. You’re that father of four children in Orange Mound who doesn’t know anything about a Facebook page and doesn’t want to, because you just like to keep your business and opinions to yourself. You’re that husband and wife who’ve decided to make the decision to forego that much-needed paint job for the house for another year, because your daughter needs those braces for a smile that will one day dazzle a special young man.

You don’t call radio talk shows. You don’t email Memphis city councilmen. You’ve never been to 201 Poplar and don’t even know exactly where City Hall is downtown. When you were younger, you might have marched in protest for equal rights or picketed outside a lunch counter, because you thought it was important then to have your voice heard. But now, because you think it doesn’t matter anymore to other people what you think about the direction our city is taking, you’ve become a member of what former President Richard Nixon deemed the “silent majority.”

Congratulations! As taxpayers, at least those not employed by the city, your silence in the past tumultuous week has reached deafening proportions.

It’s not like you weren’t aware of the crisis that led up to it: The impending need to deal with closing a $1 billion deficit in the city budget and the state’s mandate to fix the shortfall in health-care and retirement benefits for thousands of city employees has been in the news for months. Responsible members of the City Council have been agonizing for weeks over the astounding numbers involved in trying to close the deficit.

On the other hand, the governmental body’s “usual suspects” took the occasion of this crisis to shamelessly grandstand in front of employee unions by accusing Mayor A C Wharton’s administration of putting them in a position of being forced to do the “dirty work” of voting on the lone proposal on the table. As usual, their protests came without any alternative ideas of their own.

I received an email from one such councilperson, who told me I didn’t understand how she was constricted by the constitutional separation between the executive branch and the legislative arm from putting forth her own solutions. Obviously, she’s never listened to Shea Flinn, Jim Strickland, Harold Collins, Edmund Ford Jr., or Lee Harris, who’ve come up with creative proposals for all sorts of issues.

Which brings me to Mayor Wharton, who has taken the brunt of the outrage leveled at him by angry city employees and retirees. First, there is nothing in this man’s track record of public service to this community that warrants the vitriolic attacks against his character and his devotion to trying to carve out a viable future for Memphis, a city with a large impoverished and low-income population. It’s unfair to label or portray Mayor Wharton as a “coward” because he didn’t face down the angry mob mentality that permeated last week’s council meeting. It would have only given the aforementioned usual suspects an opportunity to selfishly divert important debate on a vital issue affecting all Memphians.

This is the same man, who on the night he was elected as the first black Shelby County mayor, had a bottle thrown through an upstairs window at his home; the same man who was the target of a racist doll with a noose around its neck, placed inside a fire station by a disgruntled white city employee. He later met face to face with that man and talked over their differences.

Yes, in my first column in this space, I was critical of the mayor, but it was never personal. And it will never be personal, if and when I do it again. There are so few people of character in government; why do so many want to go after them for making the tough decisions? And why are so many so enduringly tolerant of the miscreants, the liars, and those who think they’re entitled to special treatment because they hold public office?

So, my message to you in the “silent majority” is that, compliments of some courageous and painful actions on the part of the mayor and seven city council members, your city’s problems were realistically addressed. For now. But, unless you opt to speak out, we might not dodge the same bullet again.