In a free-wheeling press conference Thursday that began
with an impassioned defense of “unfairly damaged” former
MLGW head Joseph Lee, newly released from the threat of federal prosecution,
Mayor Willie Herenton covered the waterfront of his grievances – against the
media (both black and white), against alleged conspirators in the business
community, and against a system of justice that he considers “plantation”-based.
In the process, Herenton decried both the media and the FBI
for focusing their attention on blacks in general and himself in particular and
pointed them in the direction of former Shelby County Mayor Jim Rout, whose
eyebrow-raising stock arrangements with the now-defunct Delta Capital
Management Company got attention from the press and the feds which,
the mayor implied, was too brief and was prematurely dropped for reasons both racial and
political.
Condemning recent Commercial Appeal articles
suggesting that he was under federal investigation for possible improper
involvement in city contracts extended two African-American associates, Elvin
Moon and Cliff Dates, Herenton denied that he had been directly questioned in
the matter, contended he had more white friends and business associates than
black ones and said, “The perception is that if you’re African American and do
business, you’re corrupt.”
Continuing in a recent pattern of ex post facto
revisionism, Herenton appeared to deny that he had ever directly sought the
superintendency of Memphis City Schools and characterized his now-famous
“resignation” letter of mid-March to city CAO Keith McGhee as having been based
on “conditions” for improving the schools – though it was pointed out to him
that the letter was a terse announcement that he intended resigning as of July
31 and mentioned neither the word “conditions” nor anything about MCS.
Asked directly if he had intended to resign back in March
and if he still intended to resign now, the mayor insisted that he would
continue to serve and jokingly suggested that he might reconsider his previous
statements that his current mayoral term would be his last. “I was
thinking of retiring, but maybe I’m doing something right,” said Herenton, who
had previously contended that current allegations of illegality against him,
like an alleged blackmail plot against him last year, stemmed from the fact that
“they can’t beat me in an election.”
(More details to come.)
