Author: Micaela Watts

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Sierra Club Files Appeals to Prevent Sand Aquifer Drilling

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

The Sierra Club is appealing two permits issued from the Shelby County Health Department to the Tennessee Valley Authority that will allow them to drill into crystalline sand aquifers in order to syphon cooling water for a power plant currently under construction in Southwest Memphis.

Justin Fox Burks


TVA has filed five permits for five wells, three of which are no longer eligible for appeal. According to Tennessee chapter coordinator Scott Banbury, the power plant will need a minimum of four functional wells to draw in 3.5 million gallons daily of would-be Memphis drinking water. Should the last two permits be denied, TVA may be forced to explore alternative options.


In a letter to the Shelby County Groundwater Quality Control Board, the Sierra Club cited the board’s own regulations that they feel the potential wells will violate, particularly section 11 of the Rules and Regulations of Wells in Shelby County which reads, “Water pumped by private and/or quasi-public water supplies for residential, commercial and industrial purposes shall be limited to reasonable use.”


It’s now up to the health department to evaluate whether or not 3.5 million gallons of drinking
water a day is a “reasonable use”.

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News News Blog

Groups Combine Efforts in order to Say Her Name, Louder

CREDIT: Official Black Lives Matter Memphis

Official Black Lives Matter Memphis

A candlelight vigil honoring women of color who have lost their lives during encounters with law enforcement will be held by members of the Official Black Lives Matter Memphis chapter and grassroots organization Memphis Feminist Collective, this Thursday, October 6.

The vigil will be held at 6:00 p.m. in front the Planned Parenthood health center at 2430 Poplar
Ave.


It will be the latest example of a visible action in Memphis that is organized by two or more
social justice organizations, and according to members of both, combining
efforts is key to amplifying awareness across lines.

“We have to stand together to raise visibility,” said Briana Perry, an organizer with
BLM Memphis. “The Memphis Feminist Collective has an intersectional
approach, and so do we.”

Perry notes that the vigil is necessary because stories of women of color losing their lives in
police encounters are often left out of the media spotlight amid the coverage
of unarmed black men being killed by police.

Also integral to Thursday’s vigil is the inclusion of transgender women.

“We support women, and transgender women are women,” said Sarah Rose Cullen, an
organizer with MFC.  “They’re statistically more likely to be killed in encounters with police as compared to a cisgender white male.”

Thursday’s vigil will also call attention to the case of Bresha Meadows, the Ohio teen who
killed her allegedly abusive father and is awaiting trial where she may be
tried as an adult.

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Memphis Gaydar News

Stay Calm and Prepare for the Queens

CREDIT: Kristofer Reynolds

Kristofer Reynolds

Miss Gay America 2016, Asia T. O’Hara, will be on hand to crown the new winner for 2017.

When you think about the queer-centric areas of Memphis, the area around the airport may not be the first part of town that jumps to your mind. But, this week an otherwise bleak intersection will be infused with ample doses of glitter and choreography as the 44th annual Miss Gay America Pageant comes to the Holiday Inn on Democrat Road and Airways Boulevard.

Forty of America’s best queens will descend upon the hotel’s conference center for five nights
starting October 5 for the chance to win the most prestigious crown in all the land for female impersonators in the longest running female impersonator competition (sorry, RuPaul).

The new MGA will be crowned on October 9, after five days of pageant classics including Evening
Gown, On-Stage Interview, and Talent. Tickets to the crowning event are $45 and can be purchased here.

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News News Blog

The Pink Heat Debunked

CREDIT: The Memphis Police Department

The Memphis Police Department

The Memphis Police Department announced yesterday that they will be rolling out a hot-pink squad
car in support of breast cancer awareness for the month of October.

Because the year is 2016, and public perception is sometimes best gauged by your social media feed,
we at The Flyer noticed some measure of discontent at the announcement of Barbie’s Dream Squad Car hitting the streets.


Some rightly pointed out that tackling MPD’s massive backlog of untested rape kits might (just
maybe) be a better use of resources. Wanting to settle any concerns of public funding being funneled to an aesthetically-driven awareness campaign, we reached out to MPD to clarify a couple of unknowns.


The results:

  • It is one squad car that was already in possession of the MPD.
  • Decal Jones did the wrap-job, the cost of which was donated through a partnership with the West
  • Clinic and the University of Tennessee West Institute for Cancer Research.
  • Nary a public penny was spent on the Charger’s pink transformation.

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News News Blog

Group Mobilizes Whites on Racial Justice at Cooper-Young Fest

CREDIT: Showing Up for Racial Justice

Showing Up for Racial Justice

While you’re moshing through the crowds of the Cooper-Young Festival on Saturday, you might be approached by a white person wanting to have a quick word with you about racial injustices present in Memphis.

And if you’re so inclined to listen, you’ll likely be talking to a member of the newly formed Memphis chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ).

SURJ is a national group that aims to mobilize white people who want to contribute to national issues that disproportionately affect people of color.

The impetus, according to a SURJ Memphis chapter organizer Allison Glass, was the July 10 protest on the Hernando-DeSoto bridge, where more than 1,000 people halted traffic on the I-40 bridge that connects Tennessee to Arkansas.

“It was such a powerful moment in Memphis that I think people felt really inspired,” said Glass. “If these folks are going to commit such a courageous act, then we as white people need to organize other white people to join this effort.”

In addition to crowd canvassing, SURJ will be stationed on the elevated patio of First Congregational Church on Cooper where they will have Black Lives Matter yard signs for sale for $10. A portion of the proceeds from sales will go directly to the national Black Lives Matter network.

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News The Fly-By

Orange Mound Recovery Center To Bring Homeless Inside for Christmas

Robert Weber had stepped in and out of the Warriors Center multiple times before finally deciding to leave life on the streets behind. He graduated from their one-year program in 2007. Years later, he has no doubt about where he would be now had he not chosen to stay.

“Dead,” Weber said. “I can tell you for certain that I would be dead.”

The Warriors Center, a faith-based program that focuses on addiction recovery and offers beds for the homeless, looks deceptively small from the outside of their building on Semmes in Orange Mound. Step inside, and you’ll find immaculate hallways and meeting rooms, 65 beds, and many people with stories similar to Weber’s.

Warriors Center in Orange Mound

“It doesn’t matter if every single bed is full,” said Bert Suggs, a graduate of the program who now serves as the director of development. “If we have to, we will line our meeting rooms with cots along the wall, and everyone who’s waiting for a spot to open up will at least have shelter.”

Come Christmas, the center will be rolling out those cots for one of their biggest outreach events of the year. In addition to providing a free meal on Christmas, they’re also offering a chance for Memphis’ homeless to get haircuts, take showers, have their clothes washed by center residents, and pick up essential winter gear.

Suggs and other residents involved in outreach hope that those struggling with homelessness will come in for the meal and stay for the chance to rebuild their lives.

The center, which gets its name from the military-style structure and ranking system that their residents must advance through, started in the garage of Executive Director David Vincent. Vincent himself is a turn-around story from a past riddled with arrests and addiction. His final release from jail after numerous felonies resulted in the desire to create a faith-based program in 1999 that would address the needs of the addicted and homeless.

“They come in here, get a hot meal, get treated with respect, and a lot of times they end up staying because they realize, ‘Hey, this seems like a good option. It’s better than being out on the streets,” Vincent said. “We also just opened a women’s program, too, because there is a huge need [for shelter] in Memphis for women experiencing homelessness. We really want anybody who needs a second chance to come in.”

Suggs acknowledges it’s a challenge to keep a facility that sometimes exceeds its bed capacity fully operational.

“It’s been kinda tough here lately [financially], because we’re not as popular as other programs in Memphis,” Suggs said.

The center is, if nothing else, self-sustaining.

“We have a contracting crew [made up of Warriors residents], so we’ll do contracting work or painting work. Sometimes we’ll contract out and do security for events like the Fair,” Suggs said.

In addition to meeting their own operational costs, the residents do multiple community outreach events a year. They’ll do free repair work for the elderly and widowed. They’ll feed hundreds of meals to the larger community. It’s all part of a core value at the center — give back the same help you were offered.

This core value is why you will find center resident’s back out in the streets, recruiting new people to help, this winter. They’ll look under overpasses and canvass homeless camps, searching for those who need a helping hand.

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News The Fly-By

Tilth Organization To Tackle Hunger

In 2010, the Food Research and Action Center reported that 26 percent of Memphis residents experience food insecurity. Just four years later, a report released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors showed that some 46 percent of emergency food assistance requests were going unmet.

For the vast numbers of residents experiencing food insecurities, the solutions needed are multipronged, and in most cases, too intricate for the individual efforts of any one local food justice nonprofit group.

Enter Memphis Tilth, a nonprofit organization that offshoots from Seattle Tilth. The goal of Tilth will be to serve as the umbrella covering several nonprofit organizations that have been previously battling one or more of the many components of food insecurity, thereby creating cohesion among each nonprofit’s ability.

The ribs in Tilth’s umbrella — Bring It Food Hub, Memphis Center for Food and Faith (MCFF), GrowMemphis, and Urban Farms-Memphis — will have the ability to collaborate for maximum food distribution through community partners, such as church congregations and community centers. It’s like a network of capillaries now being fed by a main artery.

For Noah Campbell, the director of MCFF, food justice comes down to three components: access, choice of food beyond limited availabilities, and food sovereignty, or the ability to choose and grow your own food.

“I think our hope is that with these different programs — which each have very specific functions in the local food system and food access network — we will be able to create programs and relationships with partners that can really attend to all three factors that I think of when I think of food justice,” Campbell said.

Alex and Lori Greene of the Bring It Food Hub will be one of the organizations gathered under the wings of Memphis Tilth. They offer subscriptions to produce, grains, and eggs from local farmers in the greater tristate area. Alex refers to the community-sponsored agriculture subscriptions as the Hub’s “bread and butter,” yet they still find themselves with an abundance of leftover subscriptions.

“Unused bags of the Food Hub subscriptions are redistributed to community contacts,” Lori said. “Or sometimes even the First Congo kitchen or the Urban Bicycle [Food] Ministry. It’s all about finding the avenues for the food to get into the proper hands.”

Through Tilth, Bring It Food Hub and the other food justice organizations involved will be able to use their combined resources to get food into the hands of people who need it the most.

“Our great hope is that as it expands, it will provide us with an opportunity to provide that food for free to food-insecure families located in food deserts,” Alex said, referring to the census tracts that define densely populated areas without walking access to a traditional grocery store.

Seattle Tilth was able to serve 74,000 residents in 2014 alone. Should Memphis Tilth enjoy the same amount of cohesion and success, those stranded in Memphis’ food deserts may finally find their oasis.

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News The Fly-By

Community Uproar Over Proposed Charter School

Last week, around 50 parents and students of Sheffield Elementary filed out of their school, lined up on the sidewalk, and chanted this simple demand for the news cameras: “Leave us alone.”

Sheffield Elementary is one of five Shelby County Schools (SCS) slated for state takeover by the Achievement School District (ASD) — the state-run school district that manages schools in the bottom five percent of performance. Once a school is taken over by the ASD, it’s converted into a charter school.

The parents’ opposition to the proposed ASD plans for Sheffield stems from the simple argument that Sheffield is making great strides toward academic success on its own, and they say a disruption of the progress would only prove detrimental to students.

Protesters demonstrate against the ASD takeover of Sheffield Elementary.

“Why do people want Sheffield right now?” asked Barbara Riddle, whose two grandchildren attend the school. “Why now after the last few years of building a foundation with our new principal?”

Under Sheffield’s principal, Patricia Griggs-Merriweather, the school has made academic gains as measured by the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System. A TVAAS score of four or five would warrant the school’s removal from the ASD’s priority list. Sheffield’s gains in reading and math scores have earned them a score of three.

State Representative Raumesh Akbari sponsored the TVAAS law that currently renders Sheffield eligible for ASD takeover but joined the parents and students in asking for their progress to be left uninterrupted.

“The biggest fear is that this school will be taken out of the community’s control,” Akbari said. “If a school is already doing the right thing, then I want to support those efforts. I don’t want those students to go through the trauma of a takeover where the principal is gone, all of the teachers have been fired, and a whole new mentality comes in.”

SCS board member Miska Clay Bibbs, also in the crowd, echoed Akbari’s concerns about the sudden disruption of a working formula.

“For me as a school board member, it’s about choice. What does true choice look like?” Bibbs asked. “If a school is already making academic gains and growing in the way that it’s growing, how can they be matched with someone who can’t compare to that same growth? That’s not choice.”

Aspire Public Schools is the charter network that has applied to take over Sheffield. No representatives from Aspire were on hand during the protest, but parents did confirm that they had heard from representatives from the network. Riddle remains unconvinced that Aspire is the best solution for the school.

“What they did was very unimpressive,” Riddle said. “They said, ‘Well, if we take over your school, your child receives a free laptop, iPad, or desktop.’ Well, I’m not impressed with that, and my children are not for sale. It made me wonder if the children’s best interests are at heart or if there’s a hidden agenda.”

In a statement released last Thursday, the ASD said parental input was welcome and encouraged via a neighborhood advisory council charged with the task of reviewing Aspire’s application.

“The criteria for ASD are clear, and since the recent passing of the TVAAS law championed by Rep. Akbari, it is now clearer than ever,” said the statement.

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News The Fly-By

Bus Riders’ Union and Bus Drivers’ Union Team Up

Less than a week after the announced partnership between the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713 (the local bus drivers’ union) and the Memphis Bus Riders Union (MBRU), Congressman Steve Cohen announced that $2.6 million in federal funds, secured through the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT), would be allocated to fund three electric trolleys for downtown Memphis.

Members of the MBRU congregated at their monthly meeting at the Memphis Center for Independent Living said the funding felt like a familiar slap in the face; so familiar, that the funding announcement invoked little surprise, and the discussion quickly refocused to the litany of problems faced by everyday Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) users.

“When you put money [only] downtown where the trolleys are, you’re forgetting about your citizens,” said Cynthia Bailey, outreach coordinator for MBRU. “You’re forgetting about the people who need transportation to get to jobs and destinations.”

The narrative of bus riders and drivers drawing attention to unmet transit needs while money continues to pour into the trolley system is hardly new, but with each announcement of trolley funding, members of both unions have become increasingly desperate to look for solutions.

According to both Bailey and Sammie Hunter, MBRU’s co-chair, the bus riders’ union has little faith left in MATA’s CEO and general manager Ron Garrison, who they said showed initial interest in solving MATA’s problems but has not followed through with solutions.

“We took his word, but I think he’s all about the money instead of the citizens,” Bailey said. Hunter nodded in agreement and added, “I never trusted him from the beginning, and now his true colors are coming out. He’s not about the citizens.”

According to Bailey, if both the MBRU and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 713 (ATU) are able to meet with Mayor-elect Jim Strickland and bypass Garrison, it will be a victory.

“I think [Stickland will] understand us better,” Bailey said. “The ATU has experience with the board on the inside, and we have experience from the riders’ perspective on the outside. If we’re merged together as one organization, it will have a big impact.”

Local 713’s business manager William Barber not only echoes MBRU’s concerns but is also eager that the union merger will erase the long-standing perception of blame-placing that pits the bus drivers against the bus riders.

“What I want our public to realize, is that it’s not drivers against the public, it’s management against the public,” Barber said. “We want everybody to join us, listen to our rally points, get on board with the unions and MATA so we can make this city better for everybody, not just for a certain group of people.”

Barber is also quick to point out that he’s highly in favor of trolley drivers having jobs. “We want everyone to benefit,” Barber said.

Garrison said that he wants to keep an open dialogue with both unions.

“I think to the extent that we can make ourselves available, my staff and I would be happy to sit down with them to work through their concerns. I’ve tried to meet with them a number of times and have,” said Garrison, who noted that there have been no additional funds spent on the trolleys except for specific funds that can only be used on trolleys.

Additionally, the funds recently granted by TDOT could mean that the current buses used in lieu of trolleys on Main could be redistributed to MATA’s fleet.

“I welcome anyone to talk to our mayor, and I would be glad to do that with or without them,” Garrison said. “I would like to partner with them to get additional funds.”

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News The Fly-By

901 Evolution Helps Low-income Youth

There are folds of Memphis that remain untouched by the resurgence of commerce and the arts that the heart of the city has been enjoying as of late.

These neighborhoods, specifically the communities of North and South Memphis, occupied primarily by black residents, are overwhelmingly impoverished and underserved in education and employment.

The lack of resources to combat socioeconomic woes prompted Brandon Shaw, Lawrence Crozier, and Barrett Shaw to create 901 Evolution, an organization dedicated to empowering Memphis’ black youth by assisting them in the physical and educational needs that often go unmet.

“It’s a vicious cycle we’re trying to break, this cycle of not having adequate resources,” Brandon Shaw said.

901 Evolution works on a community garden.

Every Saturday, Brandon and nine other mentors gather between 20 and 30 youth. Time together is divided between tutoring, community service projects, and learning trade skills. The aim is to enrich their lives by placing a strong emphasis on the importance of supporting one another and building community.

“We wanted to not only feed them for free or take them out on field trips, but we wanted to fill in on all the needs that they’re not getting in school, or in some cases that they’re not getting at home,” Brandon said.

According to Brandon, larger, more well-known metro nonprofits do not necessarily reach the communities of North and South Memphis. Additionally, these neighborhoods have been plagued by a slate of school closings, so their mentees are likely to have experienced multiple school transfers, with repeated losses of reliable nutrition and academic support. These combining factors have left 901 with a rapidly expanding roster.

Recently, 901 filed for a 501(c)3 nonprofit status. Brandon hopes this will financially assist the program, which is currently funded straight from the mentors’ pockets.

Karen Spencer-Mcgee is a long-time Memphis resident who sends her 15-year-old son, Robert, to 901’s mentors every Saturday. She asserts her son’s trajectory has changed because of 901’s efforts.

“Just from them taking him every Saturday, it has really opened his eyes,” Mcgee said. “It gives him time to slow down, to see things they wouldn’t normally see in South Memphis.”

Mcgee adds that one of the most crucial benefits her son receives is coaching on how to safely turn away recruitment attempts by local gangs. Brandon confirms that 901 is “committed to gang intervention, because it means keeping them out of jail or being killed at an early age”.

“Having those boys redirect his brain and his heart … it has really helped him,” Mcgee said.

The larger goal of 901 stands rooted in the idea of community, the idea that when an individual’s needs are met, it leads to the empowerment of others. Their mission statement encapsulates this philosophy by stating, “Restoration of black communities starts with black youth.”

“That’s a part of the job description [for 901 mentors]. You make those connections with people who are part of the community,” Brandon said. “Compel the kids in the community to stand up, compel the parents to stand up.”