I see that Mayor A C Wharton has focused on that “miserable city” tag hung on Memphis by Forbes magazine recently. Maybe it will be a tipping point like the “southern backwater” label stuck on Memphis in 1968 after the King assassination.
I wasn’t around then but over the years I have interviewed and gotten to know several people who were. What they seem to agree upon is that the negative perception became a cause for action for something positive. Memphis resolved to do better. It took many years and the results were decidedly mixed, but the general feeling, I was told, was that the rap had some truth to it and so what do we do now, short term and long term?
One answer may be found in two of our biggest companies and corporate citizens: AutoZone and FedEx and their relentless emphasis on customer service. Maybe that should be the not-so-new government motto.
