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Art Art Feature We Recommend We Recommend

Q&A with Metal Museum’s Master Metalsmith

Preston Jackson (American, b. 1944), Jolly and the Mississippi Flood, c. 2005. Cast Bronze. Courtesy of the artist.

In October 2024, the Metal Museum named Preston Jackson as its 38th Master Metalsmith. “A Hidden Culture,” the exhibition now on display in honor of Jackson’s achievement, features 16 freestanding sculptures and four paintings by the artist, who describes the show as revealing “history that has been buried, forgotten, or deemed unimportant by society.” The Flyer had a chance to speak with Jackson about the show for our “Winter Arts Guide,” published in December 2024. 

Memphis Flyer: What was your reaction to being named the Metal Museum’s Master Metalsmith?

Preston Jackson: When I got the call to get involved in this, especially being in Memphis, you know, where my ancestors are from, I jumped at that opportunity, and I took it on, even preparing new works for the show. So it was an uplift to do what you’re supposed to. 

Your work goes into history and wants to uncover hidden histories, right?

Yeah, things that people feel uncomfortable talking about. … I find that looking back and re-understanding, rethinking things that were only a hint in your past because you didn’t have the facilities to understand them or express them, it’s almost like admitting it’s good to be human.

Preston Jackson, Madame Fruitvale and Her Dog, c. 2003. Courtesy of the artist.

Did you always know that you wanted to tell stories of other people, or was this something that you developed? 

A lot of these traits that I have today were discovered, as my parents tell the story of my growing up, many years ago, right at the beginning of my little life as a young kid. Growing up in Decatur, Illinois, a product of the great migration that happened, my life is so much a part of that history. My exhibit gave me a chance to express my feelings about that.

And when you’re looking at these stories, are you doing a lot of research? 

Yeah, you don’t want to be wild in your thinking because of how important it is to tell the truth. Just look at our politics today. Truth is sought after, and it’s valuable. If we live a lie or believe in lies, we’re going to sort of destroy the entire civilization.  

Metal Museum, 374 Metal Museum Drive, “A Hidden Culture,” On display through January 26. 

Categories
Music Music Features

Remembering a Friend: Stanley Booth

Stanley Booth (Photo: Nanette Bahlinger)

My previous piece in 2018 on my friend Stanley Booth, whom I knew for 64 of his 82-plus years, had concluded with his revelation to me that he’d become a Catholic, achieving what he called “the greatest pleasure of my life … a complete redesign.” 

It was surely appropriate, then, for Stanley’s funeral to be a Roman Catholic mass, which took place at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Central Avenue on Saturday, December 28th, more than a week after his death at Harbor View Nursing Facility on North Second Street. 

The attending group of communicants was smaller than I would have anticipated and scattered throughout the venerable high-ceilinged Midtown church. A mass was a mass, after all, and this one kept pretty much to the standard litany, without allowances for the kind of open memorial that people of consequence so often receive these days.

And Stanley Booth was very much a person of consequence. His authorship of The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones Outlaw Band (published in 1984 as Dance With the Devil after years of dedicated effort and familiarity with the band) was arguably the War and Peace of the rock era. There were other notable books, like Rythm Oil, a compilation of shorter pieces about the people, places, and things of that era, which, after all, is still very much with us. (The purposely misspelled title was typical Boothian waggishness.) 

My favorite single piece of Stanley’s, a brief review of a Janis Joplin concert in Memphis during the mid-’60s, a failure through no fault of the singer’s own, somehow manages to encompass all the rights, wrongs, misadventures, and pretensions of the time.

A memorial for Stanley will be scheduled for later on, or so promises our mutual friend David Less (no slouch as an author himself), who had made a point of looking in on Stanley in his last days. According to David, Stanley had been lonely and depressed at the nursing home, where he had grown progressively more physically incapacitated, even as his mind strained, as writers’ minds do, toward articulation and purpose.

All that striving had ceased mere days earlier, as Stanley, after consultations between David and Stanley’s daughter Ruby, was entered into hospice care per se. He had become mute and incommunicative, hovering on the edge of vegetative.

Very regrettably, I had not gotten around to seeing Stanley as he neared his end. Many reasons for that, including a newly acquired auto that couldn’t be depended on to start and resisted all efforts to fix. The basic reason, though, was that our relationship, like the car, famously had its fits and starts.

A few years ago, after a reasonably longish period of keeping close company (which meant, significantly, carting Stanley around and making sure he had things — e.g., wheelchair, TV, what-have-you — and passing on periodic feelers from music media types trying to connect with him), we’d had a bizarre interruption. Out of the proverbial blue, he’d asked me why, some 60 years earlier, I’d referred to his girlfriend of that time as “simian.”

I remembered no such shocking incivility toward a lady whom I had in fact admired and, reasonably enough, therefore, could offer no explanation. Many protests and back-and-forths later, there had been an exchange of over-the-edge remarks between us, resulting in a breach. Inevitably, there would have been a healing, something we’d gone through more than once during those aforesaid 60-odd years, but — time ran out.

Sadly, this kind of thing was not atypical for Stanley. His persona, like his sense of language, filled all the obvious, and most of the imaginable, spaces. Though he had reservoirs of charm, many of his relationships ran into stormy weather. Long on talent and short of stature, he had his share of the Napoleon syndrome. He could be modest, but never exactly humble. Or maybe that should be stated the other way around. His earliest literary model had been Ernest Hemingway, that paragon of basic English and exact phraseology. 

At a public function some years ago, the late George Klein introduced him, molto con brio, as a celebrated music writer. No, Stanley objected, for better or for worse, he was a writer, pure and simple. This was an echo of Hemingway’s famous late-career admonition to his overly self-concerned contemporary F. Scott Fitzgerald, “You see, Bo, you’re not a tragic character. Neither am I. All we are is writers.”

Over the years, I’ve known numerous highly talented individuals whose abilities transcended various categories of the usually recognized earthly disciplines. Even as we speak, I could name you a handful, right here in Mempho. Would-be Renaissance men (and women).

Though he was not without a generous amount of self-regard (as the high proportion of references to himself in all his work indicates), Stanley Booth was not among these across-the-board pretenders. A writer is all he was. No scatterer of loose energy across the lines. No diluter of his essential being.

And for that he deserves to be called a Master.

I did not mean to confer, earlier in this article, any slight upon the reach and scope of the Roman Catholic litany. Its very universality and subordination to a (lowercase) catholic whole may have been the aspect of the religion that most appealed to Stanley and caused him to embrace it. 

“I am not after any pie in the sky,” he would tell me, by way of an awkward attempt to account for his conversion. In this piece, I have not listed any of the earthly honors conferred upon him, and there were many, including a lifetime achievement award from the Smithsonian Institute. But as Stanley once said, wistfully, “You can’t eat reputation. If I had a nickel for every good review I’ve had …” letting that sentence fade out rhetorically. 

As the aforesaid litany notes, “we know partially, and we prophesy partially.” But it holds forth the idea for the striver of attaining the company of the saints, and that ain’t hay. 

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah … (Photo: Tlakebluemoon | Dreamstime.com)

You’ll notice a couple of places in this issue where I’ve been named responsible for the “New Year, New You” cover story. That dang editor is at it again! The truth is, the Flyer has done some form of this theme for as long as I can remember for its first issue at the turn of a new year. It had its place on the publication calendar long before I took the helm, so, objectively, for this edition at least, we’re still the same ol’ Flyer despite annually rallying for a “new you.” (Former editor and longtime “New Year, New You” “responsible party” Bruce VanWyngarden finally let the intrusive thoughts win this round; see “New Year, New Ewe.”) 

Anyhow, we like you exactly as you are! And you get bonus cool points just for being here. But if you’re thinking of reinventing yourself, exploring new activities, or (not-so) simply putting the phone down for a change, our writers have some thoughts for you. 

If, like me, resolutions aren’t your thing, maybe you’ll take a lesson in something I’ve learned from my dad: zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Let me explain. My 60-something-year-old father is the primary caretaker for my paraplegic brother, a commitment he fulfills with love and grace. He’s the family’s black sheep — outspoken, a country boy through and through, perhaps a bit wild — if you believe the stories (hint* they’re true). By most accounts, his life hasn’t been easy. Through the back-to-back deaths of my grandparents, my brother’s health challenges, nearly two years of sibling squabbles over estate matters, (minor outbursts aside) my dad remains as calm and cool as can be. “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” he says as he tells me my brother threw a fit to be discharged from the hospital. “It’s another wonderful day!” he responds when I call stressed out over … any of the many things that stress me out. “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah,” he replies when I swear everything is falling apart (it’s not). 

Before I go any further, I’m aware of controversy over the 1946 Disney film from which the line “zip-a-dee-doo-dah” was pulled. What I’m writing here has nothing to do with that. Please don’t hang me out to dry! Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, for my dad anyway, is a way of life, a motto by which to live. It’s closely akin to “hakuna matata” — which, thanks to The Lion King, we all know means “no worries.” Maybe I should have used that as the title of this piece instead. No one has anything bad to say about The Lion King. (Who am I kidding? You name it, someone’s got a gripe.) Oh well. The idea is to stop taking things so seriously. This has been a longtime battle for my overthinking, overanalyzing brain: Everything is serious! Something could go wrong at any time, and what do we do then? Let’s ponder every possible, surely horrible outcome! 

So that is what we won’t do this year, okay? We won’t be guided by fear. We won’t expect the worst. We won’t agonize over things that haven’t happened yet. Instead, we will let go of what we can’t control, or the need for control. We’ll smile through the hard stuff. When life starts life-ing a little too hard, we will say to ourselves, quietly (or loudly to really drive it home), “Zip-a-dee-doo-dah!” And you’ll know when it’s time. A flat tire? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Water heater went out? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah. Editor asks you to write another “New Year, New You” blurb? Zip-a-dee-doo-dah! Much like “hakuna matata,” it’s a “problem-free philosophy.” 

We’ll still run into problems, of course. But maybe we’ll look at them as opportunities. Maybe we’ll start with small steps to address the ones we want to fix. But we certainly won’t worry. There’s just no sense in that. We’re going to go with the flow. We’re going to let that sh*t go. My dad says so, and that’s that.

Categories
At Large Opinion

New Year, New Ewe

Don’t ew my ewe. (Photo: Timothy Large | Dreamstime.com)

So, the editor said at our last staff meeting that we all needed to come up with something to write about for our annual “New Year, New You” issue. Basically, it’s anything to do with reinventing yourself without actually saying “New Year’s resolution.” Most of the time, it comes down to writing about self-improvement projects, like taking up hot yoga, quitting drinking, getting a Peloton, or buying those puffy new running shoes that somehow make jogging in Overton Park at the crack of dawn appealing. The advertising folks will be selling to local businesses who specialize in such services, so it all tracks. 

I have threatened for years to write about adopting a sheep for this issue, because, well, not using the headline “New Year, New Ewe” just seems like a wasted opportunity. And since 2025 is looming like the open cellar door to the end-times, I figured it was now or never. 

I did a bit of research and read that a ewe is a female sheep, which I already knew. And I quickly learned that my word processing program unhelpfully corrects “a ewe” to “an ewe.” It’s ewes-less to try to reprogram it, I discover, so I move on. After all, I’ve still got to figure out how to get a new ewe in the new year.

Here are some other sheep terms I became familiar with: A male sheep used for breeding is a ram or a buck. A male that has been castrated and that will be used for meat is a wether. And, of course, the little cute ones are called lambs. Whether a lamb grows up to be a wether, a ram, or a ewe (or a chop) is all in the roll of the sheep dice. But for purposes of this story (and maintaining a commitment to the pun), I’m only thinking of ewe, dear. 

A mature ewe weighs 200 to 225 pounds, which seems like a big-ass sheep. So once I get my new ewe (on Amazon?) I’m going to need to figure out a way to keep it fed. It should be able to graze off my yard for much of the year, I’d think, but I don’t have a big lawn, so I might have to supplement it with a couple of hay bales or something. Plus, I could probably walk it around the neighborhood and let it graze in my neighbors’ lawns as we stroll along. I don’t think they’ll mind. In fact, I suspect that my ewe and I would soon become a legend on nextdoor.com — not to mention, the talk of the Memphis Reddit community. Once my sheepish girl has gotten her fill of yummy Midtown zoysia, we’ll just make a ewe-turn and head back home. And, of course, I’ll carry a sheepy-bag for the ewe-doo, just in case. I know the rules. I’m not a savage.

And here are some of the lifestyle improvements attendant with getting a New Ewe in the New Year: Exercise — walking around the neighborhood every day, hefting the occasional bale of hay, not to mention carrying the 12-pound bags of ewe-doo home from your daily walk. You’ll be fit and buff in no time. Free Wool — You just shear your ewe once a year and voila, a big bag of premium wool, ready to be spun into yarn and turned into a sweater by your dear old Aunt Nedra. 

And I’m sure that there are other benefits of ewe-ownership besides exercise and free wool but they’re not coming to me right now. Let me think … Nope. In fact, it’s beginning to become obvious that I’ve written this entire column just to justify using a stupid pun that I’ve resisted using every Flyer New Year’s issue for years. And that’s not fair to you, the reader, or to Ewe, my sheep, who’s been caught up in this awkward transition to urban living through no fault of her own. 

I had another option, too, which makes this all the more tragic. If I had gone with the alternative plan, it would have been easier for all of us. Get a shrub. Plant it. Keep your head down and hope for the best. New Year, New Yew. 

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Restaurants Ring in the New Year

Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh with his new pulled pork sandwich (Photo: Michael Donahue)

Jimmy “Sushi Jimmi” Sinh introduced his new menu January 7th at his Poke Paradise restaurant at 6343 Summer Avenue, Suite 110.

He’s added more items, including some of his weekly specials. “I’m doing the same thing I always do,” Sinh says. “Fusing my food up a little bit. Asian fusion.”

Sinh plans to add another item in about a week. “We’re a city that loves barbecue, and I have this cool pulled pork sandwich that will be really good for Memphis.”

With influences from Memphis, Asia, and Hawaii, the sandwich will be “the normal jumbo pulled pork sandwich we love here, but the sauce and seasoning will have more of an Asian twist to it.”

The Hawaiian influence is “how the sauce is cooked. The ingredients in the sauce. It will also have a slice of pineapple on it as well as the pulled pork.”

In the coming weeks, Sinh, who has served lunch to patrons who requested it since the restaurant opened, will introduce his official lunch menu featuring smaller portions from the dinner menu. “And we are also offering soups and salads with our lunch menu.”

Sinh also is beefing up his catering business. He plans to do “more than sushi and poke” and to offer a pho bar featuring Vietnamese cuisine.

Sinh’s catering business isn’t limited to corporate events or large venues. “It can be anywhere. If you don’t have a kitchen, no worries. We can bring everything there.”

• Executive chef Nate Henssler has a lot going on in 2025 at Amelia Gene’s Restaurant at 255 South Front Street.

They’re going to take advantage of the success of their special Thursday Tasting Dinner by continuing their thematic approach to the five-course dinners, Henssler says. In homage to the Lunar New Year, which is coming up at the end of January, they’re going to offer a “fun tasting menu” featuring a Chinese-Thailand tasting menu “but using Amelia Gene’s products and Amelia Gene’s presentation.”

The Thursday night tastings are “very popular,” Henssler says. “Every Thursday, we’re seeing between 30 and 45 of these guests coming in for a five-course meal.”

He says, “We’ve also started to put a wine pairing on the tasting menu, and we added a cocktail pairing. We’re continuing to evolve that. We’re going to expand our spirit-free cocktails as well.”

Henssler adds, “Our guests have really enjoyed discovering our expansive wine list, thanks to our general manager Jessica [Henssler].”

Henssler plans to offer rare or special wines by the glass or half glass, like the popular 2015 Dom Perignon champagne they served during the holidays. “On weekends we will open a special bottle. And we’ll let people know.”

Diners will be able to enjoy this wine by purchasing a glass instead of the whole bottle. 

Amelia Gene’s, which does two menus a year, will launch the new one in the latter part of January.

They’re working on getting some live lobsters in and, instead of shrimp and grits, maybe doing a lobster and grits dish using a whole live Maine lobster.

They are currently offering a special hamburger at the bar. Henssler is thinking about offering a “New England-style lobster roll” instead of the burger for a limited time. “Something for the guests that they can only get at the bar.”

“I’ll be sourcing live lobsters from New Bedford, Massachusetts. I’m from New Hampshire, so that’s mother’s milk to me.”

During the holidays, they turned their cheese cart into a dessert trolley for a couple of weeks. It was “wildly popular,” he says. He’s planning to do more limited-time dessert carts. Their dessert chef Jessi Derenburger is “super creative.”

In short, Henssler says, “For 2025, we want to keep pushing creativity. We want to show our guests that fine dining can be very fun. Quirky dishes. And that starts on the Thursday tasting menu.”

His goal is to “just keep pushing forward. We’re got an amazing team. I truly believe we have the best team in Memphis. And we’re just going to keep getting better.”

• Carlee McCullough is looking west during 2025. Not as in cowboy hats and boots, but sunsets.

McCullough is the owner of Mahogany River Terrace, which arguably has the best view of sunsets on the Mississippi River. It’s the ideal place to sip wine or a cocktail and dine on an elegant meal while viewing the waning sun.

“Sunset and Champagne” is slated to launch in the middle of January at the restaurant at 280 Island Drive, McCullough says. “Basically, what we’ll do every day is we’ll check and see when the sunset is expected,” she says. “We’ll be posting on social media.”

They will feature discounted rates on champagne and appetizers.

They’re currently focusing on their prix fixe dinners, which they will feature on Valentine’s Day at Mahogany River Terrace as well as McCullough’s other restaurant, Mahogany Memphis at 3092 Poplar Avenue, Suite 11, in Chickasaw Oaks mall. They always have steak options at both restaurants, but for Valentine’s Day they will offer a rib eye and lobster pairing at Mahogany Memphis and a tomahawk steak and lobster pairing with crab cakes at Mahogany River Terrace, where the fare is more seafood-oriented.

McCullough also is getting ready for the warm weather. “In summertime we are poised to be very popular because of the patio.”

They will feature food specials. And, she says, “We’re going to be very big on champagne.”

She’s partnered with a distributor to offer Veuve Clicquot champagne. “We’ve talked about ‘Veuve Clicquot Wednesdays.’”

That will include appetizers and live music, she says. And, of course, “There’s not a bad seat in the house.”

As for Mahogany Memphis, McCullough wants people to know that the restaurant hasn’t closed just because she opened Mahogany River Terrace. The restaurant is “still going strong,” she says. “We’ve still got fabulous food.”

Chickasaw Oaks is “such a quaint mall,” McCullough says. “You don’t even know you’re in Memphis when you’re in that mall.”

• The dining room is open again at SideStreet Burgers at 9199 MS-178 in Olive Branch, Mississippi.

“It closed for Covid, obviously, a long time ago now,” says owner Jonathan Mah. Customers picked up their orders outside. Mah used the dining room area for storage and as a prep area. “Since then we made room for the storage and prep area. And we renovated the dining room with some tile floors.”

They opened up the dining room last August to make room for more tables. It now seats 20 people.

Mah plans to get a vent hood for the stove. “So, we can do grilled burgers. And possibly add a fryer.”

They’ve never sold grilled hamburgers, he says. “We’ve always baked our burgers in a convection oven, which is very unorthodox in a burger joint. We started 13 years ago and that’s all the money we had. So, we just kind of stuck with it. That’s what we had to use, so we had to be more creative with how we season our burgers.”

Baking the meat “keeps them juicy, for sure.” But a griddle would help sear the outside of the meat and keep the juices in, he says.

They want a fryer so they can start selling French fries, which they’ve never offered. They use roasted potatoes instead, which they will continue to offer as well as the fries.

In addition to hamburgers, Mah says, “We want to completely revamp our menu and put some more fun stuff on the menu. Maybe Philly cheesesteaks or Cubans. Or bring back some sandwiches like the bánh mì, a Vietnamese sandwich. You normally would have pâté on there, but we would do some sort of Vietnamese marinated pork, pickled cucumbers, jalapeños, pickled carrots, and cilantro.”

Mah adds, “The economy is so tough you have to be creative to draw in more customers and new customers.”

As for his other restaurant, OB Pizza Company at 9215 MS-178, Mah says, “In addition to our pizza and our wings and pizza by the slice, we’re hoping to add some gelato up there.” 

Categories
Beyond the Arc Sports

Jackson’s All-Around Effort Powers Grizzlies to Victory

Jaren Jackson Jr. after 119-104 win over the Dallas Mavericks on January 6, 2025. (Photo by: @memgrizz Instagram/X)

Despite playing through a myriad of injuries, the Memphis Grizzlies prevailed over the Dallas Mavericks 119-104 on Monday. The Grizzlies were without Ja Morant, Desmond Bane, and Marcus Smart, Santi Aldama, GG Jackson, and Vince Williams Jr. The Mavericks were without Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic, so both teams were not playing with a full hand.

In gaining their first victory at home in 2025, the Grizzlies (24-13) rallied from an early deficit and improved their home record to 15-4 on the season. Memphis has won 10 of its last 11 games at FedExForum.

Jaren Jackson Jr. had a dominant showing for Memphis by recording his third double-double behind 35 points, 13 rebounds, five assists, and three steals.

The Michigan State alum became the first player in franchise history to record a 30-10-5 stat line with three steals. His stellar performance in every area further solidified his status as one of the best two-way players in the NBA.

For the season, the 25-year-old big man is averaging 22.7 points per game, 6.4 rebounds, 1.6 blocks, and 1.5 steals. 

Scotty Pippen Jr. added 18 points and a career-high five steals. Luke Kennard chipped in 13 points, four rebounds, and four assists as a reserve while going 3-of-5 from three.

Rookie forward Jaylen Wells garnered his first career double-double with 17 points and a career-high 10 rebounds. John Konchar grabbed 13 rebounds as the starting shooting guard. Konchar has recorded 10+ rebounds in all three starts this season. Jay Huff put up 11 points off the bench. Memphis is now 14-2 when Huff scores in double figures.

Up Next

The Grizzlies are set to host the Houston Rockets on Thursday, January 9, at 7 p.m. CT at FedExForum. This matchup is expected to be intense, with the Grizzlies looking to defend their home turf against the Rockets, who are currently on a three-game road win streak.

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Nonprofit Eyes Former CA Building as Vo-Tech Training Center

Photo Credit: Colliers International

A nonprofit organization is working to raise $1.1 million to turn the building that once housed The Commercial Appeal into an immersive, vocational development program for underserved youth.

Ty Cobb, president of Have a Standard Foundation, presented his plans for his CoreFire program to the Memphis City Council today during the Public Services, Arts, and Youth Initiatives Committee meeting.

The building is set to be auctioned on January 27. Cobb acknowledged that it could be difficult to raise funding in such a short amount of time from the City Council, yet he still wanted to make them aware of his plans to work with 10,000 youth through vocational training.

He said this training is different from other programs that aim to intervene between youth and crime.

“Our program focuses on the youth that are at the highest rate of dropping out,” Cobb said. “If we want to reduce crime in Memphis, we need to begin by understanding that the traditional training programs are not designed to reach youth that are most likely to commit crimes and live in poverty.”

Cobb referenced trade school education, and noted the state’s initiative to offer free trade school education. While he commended the state for being the first to do so, he said it is not succeeding with the population it was meant to reach.

“Only about 15 percent of the low-income, at-risk youth who start the free education actually earn a trade certificate,” Cobb said.

He also said he noticed that several of these programs use lectures as a way to connect with children — which he said is not effective. As a result of his observations from volunteering with at-risk youth in the nineties, Cobb built the first escape room in the United States. Since then, he has built more than 30.

“Teaching through escape rooms works with the most disengaged youth because you teach through fun, immersive, story-telling,” Cobb said.

After visiting all 24 community centers in the area, Cobb found a common thread of understaffing. 

He plans for the building to be run by high school interns, and youth from underperforming schools will be allowed to participate at no charge. After completing the program the interns will be paid and trained to lead after-school robotic classes and leadership training that they can use to give back to community centers in their neighborhood.

“When we give youth confidence for experiencing vocations in a fun, exciting, environment, the negative forces pulling them down do not look so enticing,” Cobb said. “They know a path in a negative direction does not end up anywhere good. They just need to experience a positive alternative.”

Cobb added that income will come from ticket sales from a daily, live show produced by the interns that range from culinary exhibitions to drone and robotic competitions.

In addition to contributing to the workforce of the city, Cobb said 10,000 youth can be trained at the facility without any government funding.    

“It’s a unique system where a nonprofit is able to produce income that self-sustains the funding through the years,” Cobb said.

Mark Lovell, founder and CEO of the Delta Fair and Music Festival, has supported the program for 10 years and has invested $500,000 into it. Lovell has also committed another $250,000 towards the bid.

“We have a problem,” Lovell said. “Some people want to admit it, some people don’t. I own the Delta Fair and one of the biggest problems we have is on Saturday night. We have a bunch of young kids aged 13-20 who just want to cause trouble. We need to reach these young children at a young age before they get pulled into the wrong system.”

Councilman Edmund Ford, Sr., said the city won’t be able to fully tackle crime if it doesn’t help young people.

“This program is a very big program,” Ford said. That’s why I want all y’all that got money, that y’all give it to the wrong folk — I hope you’re listening today where we can raise this $1.1 million. This is what we need to do this year.”

Councilwoman Yolanda Cooper-Sutton said she’d like to see more data, as well as how they plan to address transportation.

“I need to see data, I need to see success stories, I need to see what you’ve done,” Cooper-Sutton said. “I need to see how many children that have been successful, that have been with Corefire and have gotten jobs, and they’re not in poverty.”

Categories
News News Blog News Feature

Lee Rejects Money to Give Free Summer Meals to Children

Posted to Facebook by Tennessee House Democrats

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected $1.1 million in federal grant funding at the beginning of the year, an action that will end free summer meals for up to 700,000 Tennessee children. 

Lee’s adminstration indicated last year that it would not renew the state’s participation in the federal Electronic Benefits Transfers Program for Children (Summer EBT). His office told NBC News last month that it costs too much to administer the program, noting that the federal government began shifting the adminstration cost to the states.  

The program issued a $120 EBT card, called Sun Bucks, to 700,000 children in Tennessee last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administered the program for the federal government. They were available for children aged 6- to 17-years-old for June, July, and August, when most children are on summer vacation. The money could only be spent on food. 

Lee’s adminstration did not formally announce the rejection on any public platform. Instead, his office quietly missed the January 1 deadline renewal. 

The rejection brought questions and anger from many. 

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) requested an explanation of Lee’s decision by January 17th. He said child hunger is “especially pressing in Tennessee,” where 40 percent of families report food insecurity, according to data from Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy. 

“While I understand your office issued a statement claiming that the program was ‘established in the pandemic-era to supplement existing food assistance programs in an extraordinary circumstance’ and that the program is ‘mostly duplicative,’ I urge your administration to reconsider,” Cohen wrote in a letter to Lee this week. “Congress’s decision to make the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Transfer (P-EBT) a permanent summer program through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 reflects the bipartisan recognition of its success and necessity. 

“Feeding our children is not just a matter of public policy — it is a moral imperative. Well-nourished children are better able to learn, grow, and lead healthy, well-adjusted lives.”

Knowing that Lee’s decision on the matter was at hand, many Tennessee relief agencies advocated for him to keep the program. 

The Nashville-based Tennessee Justice Center urged its followers to send Lee a form letter, which asked him to keep the program. 

“In 2024, Summer EBT served over 650,000 children in Tennessee and brought nearly $79 million into the state economy,” the center said. “Tennessee children aren’t going anywhere. They will continue to need food during the summer months in 2025 and beyond.”

In a December opinion piece in The Tennessean, Rhonda Chafin, executive director of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee, said opportunities like the Summer EBT program are rare, and praised Lee for joining the effort in the first place.

“Opportunities to create such profound, positive change for children — at minimal cost to the state — are rare,” Chafin wrote. “By continuing Summer EBT, Tennessee can address child hunger, boost educational outcomes, and stimulate local economies simultaneously.

“Governor Lee has demonstrated compassionate leadership in this area before, and we trust he will do so again. The children of Tennessee are counting on us to stand up for their well-being. Let’s not let them down.”

Tennessee House Democrats were more direct in their assessment of Lee’s decision. Before Christmas, the group posted a photo of Lee dressed as The Grinch with a sack on his back, that reads “Food $$$.” The meme asks, “Will the Governor steal your child’s summer meals?” 

The post also carried this treatment of “’Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

“’Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the state,

Tennesseans were begging Gov. Lee to stop with the hate.

Letters were sent with stories of how,

Lee’s decision on summer EBT for children was needed now,

With hopes that he will renew the program with glee,

Call his office with a hopeful plea.”

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State GOP Bill Would Tamp Down Hate Groups

A Neo Nazi group called there Goyim Defense League yelled anti semitic slogans at tourists in downtown Nashville. Photograph by John Partipilo/ Tennessee Lookout ©2024

With support from Metro Nashville’s mayor, two Republican lawmakers are sponsoring a measure designed to handcuff hate groups such as those that targeted a synagogue and marched in Nashville last year.

Notably, it prohibits the transport of people in box trucks, such as the rental vehicles used to carry neo-Nazi groups to Nashville locations, and gives police more latitude to charge people with violating the law.

But one First Amendment expert said the bill is on “constitutional thin ice” even though California adopted a similar law.

“It’s important to remember that hate speech is completely protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It’s not a close call. Hateful things are protected under the First Amendment no matter how ugly or disturbing or rude they happen to be,” said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at MTSU in Murfreesboro.

Allowing government to define hate speech would be “extraordinarily dangerous,” Paulson added, because each administration could find different things to be hateful.

Those committing hate crimes need to be held accountable, says Tennessee House Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth of a proposed bill. (Photo: John Partipilo)

House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) sponsored a resolution in 2024 condemning neo-Nazis that marched through downtown Nashville carrying swastika flags and wearing masks. With the 2025 legislative session approaching on Jan. 14, Lamberth and Sen. Mark Pody (R-Lebanon) are sponsoring House Bill 55, which revamps state laws dealing with littering and trespassing, police procedures and obstruction of justice, and road safety to tamp down hate speech and intimidation.

Groups handed out anti-Jewish literature to members of a Nashville synagogue and held signs at overpasses promoting hateful messages.

“These tactics are deliberate efforts to terrify people and create profound distress,” Lamberth said in a statement. He added that people who commit hate crimes, “often anonymously,” should be held accountable. 

Pody, who represents part of Davidson County, said the bill represents the state’s “unwavering commitment” to protecting communities from antisemitism, intimidation and extremism.

Dubbed the Protecting Everyone Against Crime and Extremism Act (PEACE) Act, the bill sets up new limitations for littering and trespassing to keep hate groups from flooding neighborhoods and parking lots with fliers.

Lamberth said Monday the bill is “carefully crafted” to avoid problems with broad interpretation or the potential for police to crack down on rallies and protests that don’t involve hate speech.

The Metro Nashville Council passed an ordinance last year targeting hate groups after marches took place in Nashville, and Mayor Freddie O’Connell said in a statement he appreciates the effort to stop such intimidation and give law enforcement more tools to handle these situations.

“It sends the message that hateful acts will never be tolerated here,” O’Connell said.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation reported 122 incidents in 2023 motivated by bias involving race, religion, sexuality, and disability, down slightly from 129 in 2022 and 135 in 2021. Some 35 percent to 41 percent of those were anti-Black or African American, the report shows.

It’s not a close call. Hateful things are protected under the First Amendment no matter how ugly or disturbing or rude they happen to be.

– Ken Paulson, director, Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University

State Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said Monday he appreciates the spirit of the legislation because he feels too many people, including his family, have been victims of the type of hate speech the bill is trying to prevent. Clemmons, though, indicated the measure might need changes.

“I hope to work with the sponsors to ensure that the legislation, in its final form, is constitutionally sound and achieves its stated, intended purpose,” said Clemmons, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The measure makes it a Class A misdemeanor to pass out literature considered a form of hate speech or intimidate someone to prevent them from exercising constitutional rights such as religious freedom or the ability to vote.

The bill also gives law enforcement officers more leeway for enforcement.

For the second week in a row, neo-Nazis take to Nashville streets

It creates a buffer zone of 25 feet between officers and people who are ordered to stop and makes it a Class B misdemeanor to violate that space.

The bill also requires a person to give their name to an officer who asks them to identify themselves and makes it a Class C misdemeanor to refuse or to give a fake name.

Using a box truck to transport people would be made a Class B misdemeanor under the bill. At least one group used a rental truck to bring its members into town to rally.

Likewise, the bill would make it illegal to put a sign, signal or marking on a bridge, overpass or tunnel.

In addition, police could use “probable cause” to charge someone with violating the law regardless of whether they saw the person commit the act.

Paulson said most controversies have two points of view, and each side believes the other is hateful. 

Governments can ban all littering and banners hanging from overpasses, but they can’t prohibit only those pieces of literature and banners they regard as hateful, Paulson said.

“If you ban Nazi pamphlets, you also have to ban pizza joints passing out coupons in public. You cannot discriminate on the basis of ideas,” he said.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com.

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City Dashboards Show Crimiest Memphis ZIP Codes

Credit: city of Memphis
Credit: City of Memphis

If you’ve been paying attention to news at all, you’ll know crime is down in Memphis.

Yes, it’s a national trend. But, like, who cares. Falling crime in Memphis is good news no matter where it comes from. 

Total crime across the city fell 13.3 percent from 2023 to 2024, according to data released from the city at year’s end. Crime was down in every ZIP code in the city, except for 38131 and 38152.

Credit: city of Memphis

Those two are head-scratchers. (We’re not data experts, so we’re not equipped to label them “aberrations” or whatever.) But 38131 is a neighborhood wedged between Memphis International Airport to the south and I-240 to the north. Last year saw 54 crimes there, and that’s up 42 percent from 2023. 

The other area — 38152 — is on the eastern part of University of Memphis campus, encompassing Ball Hall, Campus Elementary School, and big parking lots. Across a big ditch there, nice homes stand in the same ZIP code along Grandview. Last year saw 57 crimes there, and that’s up 83.9 percent from 2023. 

The city did not give any details on the crimes in these areas, aberrations or no. In his weekly newsletter Friday, Memphis Mayor Paul Young said, “We are working on it!”

Year-End-Crime-Presentation-Year-End-Crime-PresentationDownload

In addition to that year-end report, you can track Memphis crime now with two (new to us) crime stats dashboards. 

The first shows Memphis crime year to year. The Crime Analytics dashboard shows unfiltered stats on 40 different types of crimes (from credit card fraud to murder) in three major crime categories — property crimes, personal crimes, and crimes against society. 

In total, there were 101,363 total crimes in Memphis last year. Of those, 10,642 were deemed violent crimes. There were 42,647 property crimes, 299 homicides (235 of those were murders), and 9,821 car thefts. 

Credit: city of Memphis

Pulling way back, though, the dashboard shows a map of concentrations of crime. We know you can likely overlay a map of poverty and other factors over the crime map and get commanding results. We’re not here to issue judgments about anything. But (and you knew that was coming) you can see, objectively, where the most crime happened in Memphis in 2024. 

Top three ZIP codes for Memphis crime 2024: 

Credit: city of Memphis

1. 38118 (Oakhaven, Parkway Village): 8,565 crimes

2. 38115 (Hickory Hill): 7,900 crimes

3. 38116 (Whitehaven) 6,841 crimes

Top three ZIP codes for Memphis homicides 2024: 

Credit: city of Memphis

1. 38127 (Frayser): 33

2. 38109 (Raines): 31

3. 38118: (Parkway Village): 30

Top three ZIP codes for Memphis rapes 2024

Credit: city of Memphis

1. 38127 (Frayser): 56

2. 38116 (Whitehaven): 52

3. 38118 (Parkway Village): 50

Another dashboard, also maintained by the city of Memphis, shows weekly crime stats. This one does not give as much detail, like locations, nor does it break the crimes down much beyond the surface. But it still gives an interesting look at the state of the city. 

Credit: city of Memphis

For example, over the last seven days (as of Monday, Jan. 6th), 835 crimes were committed. The seven days before that, 827 crimes were reported. Aggravated assaults (152) led all crimes as of Monday, with robbery (40), and rape (5) following.

On one metric — though — the dashboard somehow makes the city’s homicide count feel more real. It seems hard to fathom 299 homicides for a community in one year. It can also seem perfectly reasonable to have 299 homicides in a city the size of Memphis. But when the dashboard reports three homicides over the last seven days (and four homicides the week before that), the data seem more personal — these were people — and sad — these were someone’s family and friends.