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21 Voices: Forcing Change at CMOM

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

They don’t want to talk about it. They say they can’t talk about it, in fact. Leaders with the Children’s Museum of Memphis (CMOM) say a non-disclosure agreement prevents them from talking about how and why Richard “Dick” Hackett, the museum’s former executive director and former mayor of Memphis, left the organization in June 2017. In an off-the-record meeting with leaders last week, they said they have nothing to hide but refused to talk about a formal investigation at the museum last year or that non-disclosure agreement.   

“The board of directors and leadership at CMOM are excited about our future and have no interest in revisiting the departure of prior CEO Dick Hackett two years after the event,” interim CMOM executive director Reed Cochran said in a statement written on behalf of the museum’s board.

Leaders said they “would be more than happy to discuss” the one-year anniversary of the carousel restoration, new board members, new programming, and the museum’s upcoming search for a new, permanent executive director. The future seems bright, inviting, and brimming with promise, like the museum itself. 

Justin Fox Burks

But a group of former CMOM employees formed an organization called “21 Voices,” and described turmoil behind the scenes, particularly during Hackett’s years. They cite nepotism, casual racism, and sexism — a good-ole-boy’s club with frat-house rules, bloated paychecks, and random bonuses. They claim Hackett made adversarial employees “sweat” if they crossed the boss or his friends. They complain that long-time staffers who had just helped CMOM win an important, national accreditation were fired for seemingly little cause. 

Members of the 21 Voices group say they petitioned the CMOM board, but the board didn’t listen. Group members said only when they threatened to launch a formal complaint to the national accreditation group did the board hire an external investigator, get some facts, and, eventually, part ways with Hackett. 

It’s a much different story than Hackett told at the time. In an interview with the Memphis Daily News‘ Bill Dries in May 2017, Hackett said he was stepping aside and simply shifting his focus to fund-raising.

“I’ll shift my emphasis to, on my own, raising money for the Carousel building,” Hackett told Dries. “It’s two businesses and there’s no way one person could do both.”

Scroll to the bottom of that story online, though, and you’ll find comments pointing at that other, darker narrative. (The Daily News only allowed comments through a Facebook plug-in, so, the names and people are who they say they are, on Facebook, at least.)

“He [was] nothing but a leech off the museum,” wrote Loni Wellman. “You should really be thanking the staff — who he has forced out. Look at the 990s.”

Wellman’s LinkedIn profile says she was the program manager at CMOM from 2007 to 2011. 

“Evidently he will continue to leech and plunder as a ‘consultant,'” wrote Amanda McEachran LaMountain. “And, yes, please look at the 990s, although they only paint an incomplete picture of the racism, nepotism, and general incompetence that Hackett’s ‘leadership’ represented.”

LaMountain’s father was Angus McEachran, former editor of The Commercial Appeal and also a former board chairman of CMOM.

“He claims to have made the decision to resign on his own,” wrote Jim Hyde. “Strangely, it was made just after the organization, 21 Voices, forced the board of trustees at CMOM to conduct an investigation into their claims of racism, nepotism, sexual discrimination, and workplace bullying. 

“The board at CMOM chose to tell 21 Voices that Hackett would resign due to money problems and refused to address the issues that were investigated nor will they discuss the investigation conducted by [Burch], Porter and Johnson,” wrote Hyde. “Sounds like 21 Voices were correct in their beliefs. Hey CMOM, how about some transparency?”

CMOM leaders say they are transparent, and a Charity Navigator document provided to the Flyer last week gives the museum a four-star ranking (its highest) on accountability and transparency and a score of 100 out of 100. 

Hackett retired from CMOM in June 2017. By September, he was the new executive director at Catholic Charities of West Tennessee, the service arm of the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, which serves 21 counties in West Tennessee. In a guest column in The Commercial Appeal in October 2017, Hackett said, “I feel closer to God every day I walk into our building or deliver a meal to a disabled Veteran or senior.”

Hackett said he is “proud of my body of work at CMOM” and “with the help of employees, board members, and generous donors, we were able to bring CMOM from the brink of closing its doors to a thriving, nationally accredited museum.

“All of the changes that I made, my personnel decisions, and my management approach were approved by the numerous members of the board of directors, respected members of our community,” Hackett added. “I am well aware of the false allegations made by a group of former employees and I am aware of some of their criticisms that sound [word missing] in reality but are misunderstood by the group.”

Back to the Beginning

Planning for the Children’s Museum of Memphis began in 1985, led by a group of three women — Mars Child, Polly Glotzbach, and Harriet McFadden.

The  Boston-grown and Harvard-educated Child moved to Memphis in 1984 and wanted to see a children’s museum reflecting her childhood here. About the same time, Memphis native McFadden read about Boston’s children’s museum in an in-flight magazine, flew north to see it herself, and decided she wanted a similar museum in Memphis. 

“It was there that a Boston museum trustee told Harriet about Mars’ interest in the same idea and that Mars was in Memphis,” reads a section about the women on the Women of Achievement website. “Was it fate? Coincidence? Magic?”

Others pointed the two women to Glotzbach, a Vanderbilt graduate and former Junior League of Memphis president who had toured the children’s museum in St. Louis. 

In 1987, the three incorporated the Children’s Museum of Memphis as a private nonprofit organization. The next year, the three “found a friend in [then-Memphis Mayor Dick Hackett] who helped them find the old [National Guard Armory]” complex on the MidSouth Fairgrounds, according to the Historic Memphis website.

In 1988, the museum signed a 25-year lease with the city of Memphis on the complex, paying $1 a year. Tax documents show the lease was renewed in 2000 for $1 a year for the next 37 years. Another CMOM tax document puts the worth of the buildings at $10.1 million. A 2016 audit document put the annual fair value of the $1 rent at $324,378. 

The three founders raised $3 million for construction, and the museum opened to the public on Saturday, June 16, 1990. Eleven years later, CMOM had raised $7.2 million for an expansion project that added 16,000 square feet to the museum. The expanded museum opened on August 3, 2001.

In 2013, the museum opened its H2Oh! Splash Park. In 2014, it opened the Outdoor PlaySpace.” In 2015, the museum agreed to restore the 1909 Dentzel Grand Carousel and opened the $4.5-million Grand Carousel Pavillion in 2017. 

Richard “Dick” Hackett

Hackett History

Hackett looms large in Memphis history. Elected mayor at age 33 in 1982, he was the youngest mayor of a major U.S. city. He was elected three times by Memphis voters. He made history again in his incredibly narrow loss (by only 172 votes) to the city’s first African-American mayor, W.W. Herenton, in 1991. 

Hackett reduced the city’s debt and only raised taxes once during his term in office. He appointed African Americans to some of the city’s highest offices, including James Ivey as Memphis Police Department’s first African-American director, and Greg Duckett as chief administrative officer.

Hackett also founded Wonders: The Memphis International Cultural Series. He served as senior vice president at the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), the fund-raising arm of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Hackett served on the board for Christian Brothers High School, the Wesley School for Children, and more.

In July 2006, Hackett was named CMOM’s chief executive officer, the third in the organization’s history. As mayor, he’d helped the museum secure the $1-per-year lease deal on the old Armory buildings. 

“It is great to again have Dick as an important part of the museum,” Angus McEachran, CMOM board of trustees president, said in a statement at the time. “He brings a wealth of knowledge, expertise, and contacts to catapult the museum to an even higher level of excellence.”

By the Numbers

Maybe the first public red flag of Hackett’s turn at the CMOM helm came in a regular, annual financial audit of the museum in 2014 by Zoccola Kaplan, PLLC. 

“The museum routinely utilizes a vendor who is a relative of the Chief Executive Officer for various repairs, maintenance, and capital projects,” reads the audit. “For the year ended June 30, 2014, the vendor was paid a total of $46,581 by the museum.” That same line is in audits for 2015, 2016, and 2017. 

CMOM’s 990 for that year explains the payment was made to Mark Hackett, the CEO’s brother. The next year, Mark Hackett was paid $69,022 for “improvements to exhibits.” The next year, Mark Hackett was paid $106,031, a figure higher than the salary of the museum’s Chief Operating Officer.

That year, too, Jason Hackett, Dick Hackett’s son, was paid $23,600 for “improvements to exhibits.” In 2016, Mark Hackett was paid $81,567, and Jason Hackett was paid $19,739. For all of this, the tax documents say “the conflict of interest disclosures are updated annually and monitored by the board of directors.”

“Those who criticize this decision fail to recognize, or perhaps do not even know, that my brother’s value was his ability to get most of his building materials donated in-kind by his supplier contacts,” Hackett said. “I feel the decision to hire him was because this benefit outweighed any appearance of nepotism.”

Further, Hackett said knowing his brother offered “additional assurance of character and decency over and above background checks and references.”

“You can never be too careful about who is around children,” he said. “Safety and protection of our child patrons was my No. 1 priority.” 

During that time, Dick Hackett saw his salary and benefits package increase, too. In 2014, he had a pay package worth $268,495. The museum employed 61 people that year and ended the year $132,120 in the red, according to tax documents. 

Revenues in 2015 remained largely flat over the previous year ($2.6 million in 2014 to $2.7 million in 2015) though the museum had shed 18 employees. Hackett’s pay and benefits package rose to $305,521, including a $20,000 bonus from the board. The museum ended 2015 in the red by $234,762, according to tax documents.

In 2016, revenues were slightly down ($2.6 million), and the museum added one employee for a total of 44. Hackett’s pay package swelled to $328,569, which included a $45,000 bonus from the board. 

CMOM explained in tax documents that “the board of directors annually reviews CEO compensation paid within the industry and inside and outside the area.” Hackett’s pay was approved by a CMOM compensation committee and the full board of directors.

In 2016, Jackson’s Mississippi Children’s Museum, with revenues of $4.7 million and 92 employees, paid its president and CEO Susan Garrard $129,288. In 2015, Thinkery, the Austin Children’s Museum, with 80 employees and revenues of about $5 million, paid its CEO, Troy Livingston, $108, 446. In 2015, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, with 135 employees and about $5 million in revenues, paid its president and CEO, Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, $204, 711. All of this is according to these organizations’ 990s.

Another, non-Hackett-related anomaly found in tax records is on a form CMOM filed with the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis’ nonprofit search site, wheretogivemidsouth.org. The document has warning asterisks emblazoned around the words “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection.”

But CMOM officials did file them with the Community Foundation, and one document in the latest 990s shows payments to the museum from what the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) calls “disqualified” people, “any person who was in a position to exercise substantial influence over the affairs of the [nonprofit organization] at any time during” the reporting period.

These documents show John Dobbs made payments to the museum of $10,775 in 2014, $320,000 in 2015, and $10,000 in 2016, while his wife Katherine Dobbs was listed as a CMOM trustee. Another CMOM trustee, Dick Tillman, made a $19,870 payment to the museum in 2016, according to tax documents.

Justin Fox Burks

21 Voices

Public numbers tell one part of the story. For the day-to-day, we’ll turn to interviews with three former CMOM employees who said they left or were forced to quit during the time after the museum won its national accreditation from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Twenty-one of those employees formed 21 Voices to draw attention to Hackett’s behavior.

In a January 2017 letter to the CMOM board, the 21 former employees said “Hackett repeatedly engaged in behavior with staff and visitors that is unacceptable to a man in his role as CEO.

“The behavior has also been witnessed by museum visitors, donors, and others who  have had to deal with him,” reads the letter, noting the complaints are backed by documents and recordings. “The complaints include sexual harassment by other staff members, unprofessional behavior, intimidation, verbal abuse, gender, racial, and age discrimination, conflicts of interests, and nepotism (hiring friends and family members — all white males).” 

CMOM leaders discounted this narrative last week. But when asked for their side of the story, they would not comment, pointing to the terms of the investigation and the non-disclosure agreement.

But in May 2017, 21 Voices received a letter from then-CMOM board chairman Jon Bascom. It said Hackett would retire on June 15th and “will cease being an employee of the museum.” However, the museum had taken on a debt load of $4.5 million for the Carousel building. So, the museum would keep Hackett as an independent consultant, given his “significant experience in fund raising.”

“We appreciate your desire not to harm the museum and that is a top goal of the board as well as paying for the expansion,” Bascom said in his letter. “Due to confidentiality and attorney-client privilege, I am not at liberty to discuss any details of the investigation or the resulting actions. I hope you understand.”

Bascom said it had been a “trying year so far for the museum” and that “this begins a new chapter for CMOM on the road to being ever bigger and better.”

“For years and years, we’d see [Hackett] doing something dirty but he might do something dirty to one person at a time,” said one former employee. “It was in 2016, he really messed up. He built an army against himself. I knew we were the last bit of defense for the museum. So, I started organizing all the people he got rid of.”

One employee was told not to come out of the basement. But the person worked with the exhibits, which were, well, upstairs.  

“I was forced to quit,” the employee said. “I was called up out of the basement and they said, ‘Are you ready to sign a deal?’ What was I supposed to do, wait until they fired me and there was no deal?”

As the employee tells it, the banishment came because the person helped a fellow employee (one whose English wasn’t very good) to write a resume to get a new job. The employee had been a CMOM employee for nine years without a raise, the person said.

“Once I got him that job, they really came down hard on me,” the former employee said.

That was a classic Hackett move, according to another former CMOM employee. 

“He’d strip away your job duties and say, ‘we’re not doing this anymore,'” another former employee said. “Then, you’re just sort of sitting there. Then, he tells the board you’re not doing anything.”

The employees also told of Hackett’s practice of hiring his fellow Mississippians for jobs at the museum, people he “knew from the gym” or knew from restaurants. They described a team of cronies built around Hackett who felt they could not be fired, “because of their relationship with Dick.”

It created a work atmosphere that the employees said allowed for racist remarks to go unchecked. One employee recalled a Martin Luther King Day event in which Hackett proclaimed the museum didn’t “have enough black people working here” and offered the employee $250 “for every black person you find and we hire.”

Another employee recalled Hackett and the museum’s senior staff gathered around a security monitor waiting to watch a gag. A male employee was to wait until a specific female employee stood close to him and he’d make a show of pulling down his pants in front of her, an an attempt to make the woman feel uncomfortable and to delight his buddies watching on the monitor.

Another female employee lodged a sexual harassment complaint at a Hackett-hired employee. The woman was sent home. Later, she was told she could some back to work, but Hackett said to “make her sweat,” according to another former employee.

During this period, one former employee decided to speak directly to the board. The person remembered that, according to the CMOM employees’ handbook, employees were covered under the federal Whistleblower Act. The person said they made the request to speak and the request for protection to Cliff Drake, then the museum’s COO. While Drake said he’d get back to the person, he never did, the person said.

“That’s the whole thing,” the former employee said. “We didn’t really have human resources because Dick controlled [Drake], and he controlled [now Chief Financial Officer Randall McKeel], and [current COO Art Davis]. He controlled them to where they did whatever he wanted them to do.”

Hackett said he is a “reformer” and his employers, including the people of Memphis, “hired me to make necessary changes for the greater good.” He said it’s not “an enviable job” and one that often “draws the ire of those who wish to maintain the status quo.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that I am not easy to work for,” Hackett said. “I ask for a level of dedication and hard work that some cannot give. I can be harsh.  

“In our society today, too often our leaders refuse to admit their humanity. I am human. I am not perfect. I hope that someday those who have criticized me will come to realize that my intentions were always good and with the aim of bettering the lives of the children that we served.”

21 Voices went somewhat public recently in an attempt to block McKeel from becoming CMOM’s new CEO in an undated petition at change.org. In it, Jim Hyde says, “our organization, 21 Voices, has helped remove the former CEO of CMOM, Dick Hackett, and we’re glad to see this necessary change.”

To get there, a former employee said they contacted the AAM, the group that had awarded CMOM its national accreditation, to lodge a formal complaint. The person was told by an official at AAM that many times change could happen by just simply letting board members know that the accrediting agency had been contacted with a complaint. 

“We hold the future of your accreditation in our hands and we’re watching you,” described the employee. “Just to give them a warning shot.”

That move spawned an investigation by Lisa Krupicka, an attorney with Birch, Porter and Johnson, a former employee said. Krupicka said she could not share a copy of her investigation. Sometime after that, Hackett and CMOM parted ways. When asked for an interview about this story, CMOM’s current interim director Cochran said “an interview is unlikely due to the non-disclosure agreement related to the separation.” 

Justin Fox Burks

Looking to the Future

In March 2018, the CMOM board hired Stephanie Butler, a graduate of Rhodes College and Columbia University who had been the Chief Strategy Officer with the United Way of the MidSouth, as its new executive director. 

Butler told Daily News reporter Don Wade in March that her vision was to “… open the museum up to the community” and that she wanted the museum “to be a town square for early childhood education.” Butler left nine months later, in November.

In her time there, Butler expanded the educational programming offerings at CMOM, including bi-weekly story times, movement classes and sensory play opportunities for toddlers, created a new “Night at the Museum” evening event, and created the “Experience Wakanda” day, featuring Marvel’s Black Panther.

Executive Director Reed Cochran will lead the museum until a new, permanent director can be found. A national search is expected to commence in spring 2019.

Categories
News The Fly-By

River Threat

CREDIT: Joe Royer

States and cities along the Mississippi River will see billions of dollars worth of climate-related impacts unless “major changes” are made in the near term, according to a group of 85 mayors in cities and towns up and down the river.

The Congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) issued last week paints a bleak picture for the Mississippi River Valley and the entire Mississippi River Basin with rising temperatures and rising waters.

Joe Royer

The Outdoors Inc. Canoe and Kayak Race.

Mayors with the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) said that “infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture, and vulnerability are all implicated in this new report with effects alarming to even mayors that have been dealing with these impacts for a number of years already.” The group has pushed for changes to fight climate-related catastrophes in the region since 2012.

“The first duty of government is to help ensure the safety and health of the people it represents, so leaders should heed the report’s calls for action,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in a statement. “Minneapolis is already charting a course toward 100 percent renewable electricity.

“To better protect the Mississippi River — a major force for economic justice and a key source for drinking water — we need to partner with communities, neighboring jurisdictions, and states by following the data and taking meaningful steps to curb climate change.”

The Mississippi River Corridor has already sustained over $200 billion in disaster impacts since 2005, according to the MRCTI, with six of the 10 Mississippi River states incurring more than $10 billion in losses for each state. Bettendorf, Iowa, Mayor Bob Gallagher said, though he thought he was prepared, “I was taken aback by some of the findings in the report.”

“The NCA states the annual cost of adapting urban storm water systems to more frequent and severe storms is projected to exceed $500 billion for the Midwest by the end of the century,” Gallagher said. “More important to my state of Iowa, the assessment says projected changes in precipitation, coupled with rising extreme temperatures before mid-century, will reduce Midwest agricultural productivity to levels of the 1980s without major technological advances.”

Like Memphis, other cities in the Southeast are experiencing more and longer summer heat waves, according to the NCA. Of the five cities already reporting more extreme heat waves, three of them are in the South — Birmingham, Raleigh, and New Orleans.

“The urban heat island effect [cities that are warmer than surrounding rural areas, especially at night] adds to the impact of heat waves in cities,” reads the report. “Southeastern cities including Memphis and Raleigh have a particularly high future heat risk.”

Transportation infrastructure is particularly at risk in Memphis, according to the NCA.

“An extreme weather vulnerability assessment conducted by the Tennessee Department of Transportation found that the urban areas of Memphis and Nashville had the most at-risk transportation infrastructure in the state,” reads the report. “Increasing precipitation and extreme weather events will likely impact roads, freight rail, and passenger rail, especially in Memphis, which will likely have cascading effects across the region.”

Categories
News The Fly-By

Fly on the Wall 1554

On th’WREG

Sinclair failed to break into the Memphis market earlier this year when WREG’s parent company, Tribune Media, backed out of a controversial, hotly contested deal with the conservative media giant.

In June, Atlanta-based media giant Gray Television Inc. agreed to acquire WMC’s parent company, Raycom, pending FCC approval.

Now, with Sinclair solidly in the rearview mirror, Tribune has entered into a new agreement with another giant, Nexstar. This latest development could alter the Memphis media landscape considerably.

According to a Bloomberg report, Nexstar plans to stay just below the FCC ownership cap by divesting in 13 markets. One of these markets will almost certainly be Memphis, where the company already owns WATN-24, and WLMT-30, which function as a content/staff-sharing duopoly.

As of now, WHBQ Fox-13 is still owned by Cox while WKNO continues to be sponsored by the letter Q, the number 12, and viewers like you.

Listed

Last week, Thrillist.com included Central BBQ on its list of the 21 best nacho plates in America. “AutoZone Park is the only pro MLB [sic] stadium in the country where hot dogs aren’t the top selling concession,” the entry notes.

On th’WREG 2

One of the more annoying/amusing artifacts of media consolidation is online content that initially appears to be local, but isn’t. Like this Tribune story out of Texas about a wedding photographer who was arrested for intoxication after allegedly having sex with a guest and peeing in public.

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We Recommend We Recommend

LITE Pitch Night at Rhodes

Have you ever wondered what it might be like if reality TV was authentic, or at least a little bit inspirational? Pitch Night, a twice-yearly event hosted by LITE Memphis, provides Memphis-area high school students with an opportunity to sell their ideas to potential investors. It’s a little like Shark Tank, only nobody gets eaten and the competitors are all young Memphians with big ideas.

This year’s Pitch Night presenters include Jordan Isaiah, who identifies himself as a product of special education and an ambassador for the special education community. He wants to redevelop academics to suit individual needs for “people who dream and process differently than others.” His business is called R.A.I.N.

Danielle Butler was inspired by her volunteer work at the Germantown Animal Shelter. Her Pampered Pets business is a partnership that makes leashes, collars, food, treats, and hygiene products available to new pet adopters. “Many families looking to adopt a pet don’t always have what they need for pet care,” she explains.

Isaiah and Butler are just two of 35 students who’ll present their business plans at LITE’s Pitch Night. Ideas up for grabs range from a custom PC business to a personal pastry chef who wants to recreate your family’s favorite recipes.

“We’ll have students with ideas from basically every industry,” says LITE outreach coordinator Alexandra Thomson. “Anyone in Memphis can find a connection,” she says.

LITE stands for Let’s Innovate Through Education. The Flyer profiled the incubator in an April cover story about the racial wealth gap in Memphis. Determined to play a role in narrowing that gap, LITE identifies and addresses historic obstacles to inclusive urban growth.

Categories
News News Feature

Shop Local Downtown

This holiday season, we’re encouraging our readers to support local businesses by shopping right here at home. Consider these Memphis-area establishments for your gift-giving needs.

South Main Book Juggler

Please the bookworm on your gift list with something from the Book Juggler. The shop offers new and used books and a selection of books authored by local and regional writers, in addition to locally sourced gift items and art. On the shelves, you’ll find My Memphis View ($40), a collection of photography by mixed-media artist Mary-Ellen Kelly. Visit South Main Book Juggler at 548 S. Main or southmainbookjuggler.com.

B. collective

Featuring creations from more than 25 local artists, B. collective has something for everyone on your gift list. From woodworking and paintings to jewelry and clothing, support local makers with your holiday purchases. We’re fans of this Memphis skyline sweatshirt ($45; artist Johanna Wayland-Smith pictured). Original skyline artwork is also available. Visit B. collective at bcollectiveshop.com or 147 S. Main.

Walking Pants Curiosities

This downtown shop offers a variety of oddities and unique items, many crafted by local artisans. Inside, you’ll find books, decor, handmade bird houses, and more. With this bracelet ($22), made with copper and glass beads and hand-stamped by local artist Tracy Creech of Touch by Tracy, your giftee can sport their Memphis love in style. Available at walkingpants.co or 109 G.E. Patterson.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Trump l’oeil: Seeking Asylum Isn’t a Crime

President Trump’s frustrations with immigration and his inability to build (or even finance) a wall at our southern border has led to the unimaginable: the United States military at the border firing teargas at asylum seekers — most of whom are women and children. It was disconcerting to watch from the comfort of our Thanksgiving holiday as the gas drifted toward Tijuana into the eyes of the innocent.

But it did happen. It’s almost all illegal. And it’s a crisis created entirely by President Trump.

The United States, since the conclusion of the Second World War, has led the Western world in offering protection to asylum seekers. The horrors of the European holocaust forced America to listen more carefully to the pleas of those running (literally) for their lives. Current asylum law, encoded in international treaty and national law, mandates the United States government to consider asylum pleas from people who fear for their lives in foreign lands.

The president and his team of nationalists/nativists have declared, in certain violation of international and federal law, that asylum seekers from Central America shall not set foot on U.S. soil, which makes it impossible for people to file a petition. An asylum petition can only be made upon arrival in the United States.

To deter people from filing, Trump has sent active duty military troops (deployed on U.S. soil) as a sort of shield. But even before deploying troops, the Trump administration had been laying the groundwork for this inhumane spectacle by stalling the procedure and refusing to process families seeking asylum along the border.

The president, of course, would be fully authorized to send the military to defend against an invading foreign army or other bellicose actors, but no one believes that a few thousand unarmed, poor Central Americans represent any sort of threat to this nation’s sovereignty or democracy.

There is a long history of hostilities and disproportionate responses at the border: In 1916, Pancho Villa raided the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and some innocent bystanders were killed. The U.S. responded by spending $130 million to send a cavalry force (under the command of General John Pershing) that could never capture the wily Mexican revolutionary. Seventy years prior, the U.S. government annexed half of our neighbor’s territory in a war declared after the Mexican government refused to give up their territory voluntarily.

President Trump is the only serious threat to our democracy, not poor and desperate immigrants from Central America. The Trump administration (and all administrations) are prohibited by the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act from using the army for policing activities within United States territory. Soon, we believe, the courts will hear challenges to the president’s use of the military and judges will certainly question how long-standing, settled asylum laws and traditions can be tossed aside based on the whims of a capricious president, a rogue government.

We can drown in this sea of lawlessness, or we can fight back. We don’t recommend responding with violence, but these times require action and we draw inspiration from the civil disobedience developed in 19th-century New England. Henry David Thoreau famously went to jail for refusing to pay the taxes that he knew would be used to finance the 1846 war against Mexico (mentioned above); Thoreau — rightfully — declared that war immoral and illegal.

Good people in Memphis, right now, are fighting against the madness; they’re still paying their taxes but have adopted the role of the good Samaritan by helping people (mostly women and children) who have faced illegal family separation and dubious detentions here in America. This group known as “Migration Is Beautiful” (a.k.a. The Mariposa Collective) consists of about 25 people here — most of whom speak Spanish. They organize, and meet the five buses that arrive to Memphis each day carrying people recently released from detention. Released to relatives across the country, the U.S. government forces these travelers to wear ankle monitors, and most have no possessions, no money, and no food.

Greeting these weary families with sandwiches, medicine, and toys for the children, the best of Memphis meets those who have seen and suffered the worst of the federal government. These Memphians are the people who define and sustain our democracy; these are the people who, again and again, make America great.

Bryce Ashby is a Memphis-based attorney and the Board Chair of Latino Memphis. Michael LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Music Music Features

Acoustic Sunday Live presents Dave Bromberg and Others

CREDIT: Joe del Tufo

Nestled between Memphis’ many music festivals, Acoustic Sunday Live doesn’t always get much attention. But don’t let that lull you into indifference. For a quarter century, this labor of love has been bringing some serious talent to town, always to the benefit of local causes.

Bruce Newman, the founder and chief organizer of the series, describes its origins: “We started out about 24 years ago with a Woody Guthrie tribute. I had Richie Havens, Odetta, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, and Tom Paxton. And then, over the years, we’ve had Guy Clark, Gretchen Peters; last year, we did Kathy McCay and Tom Paxton again. Jonathan Edwards one year. Just acoustic artists.”

Joe del Tufo

Dave Bromberg

Each show in the series is a benefit for a different local institution. “It’s always for a cause,” Newman notes. “Like last year’s show at the Halloran Centre was for Indie Memphis.”

The artists tend to be of the ilk featured on Newman’s weekly radio show on WEVL, Folk Song Fiesta. And this year is no different, with this Sunday’s concert featuring Dave Bromberg, Tom Chapin, Shemekia Copeland, Bobby Rush, and John Kilzer. The beneficiary will be Protect Our Aquifer, a nonprofit “dedicated to protecting and conserving the Memphis Sand Aquifer,” the source of Memphis’ drinking water.

Newman notes that this year’s beneficiary is more “political” than most. “Even though,” he adds, “I don’t even see why it should be a political issue. It’s our water, right? This is an asset that just has to be protected. Doesn’t matter what side you’re on.”

One of Sunday’s star performers is Dave Bromberg, who’s no stranger to combining politics and music, being one of the most distinct voices to emerge from the New York folk scene of the 1960s. Still, that association doesn’t quite sit right with Bromberg. “I don’t know that I was ever really a folkie, past 1960, but I’ve always been accused of that,” he says. “The term is very limiting, because there are many radio stations who have decided that’s who I am.”

Ironically, Bromberg’s love of all things musical played a role in his leaving show business for an extended time. After writing and performing with the likes of George Harrison and Bob Dylan, among others, he notes, “I got really burnt out from performing too much. And at the point where I was really doing the most, and playing for the largest audiences, and getting the most radio play, I completely stopped playing for 22 years. All I knew was, when I wasn’t on the road, I wasn’t practicing, I wasn’t jamming, and I wasn’t writing. I questioned that and decided I didn’t wanna be one of these guys who drags himself onto the stage, doing a bitter imitation of what he used to love.” He changed course into work that he does to this day. “I decided I had to find another way to lead my life. What I wanted to learn was how to identify different violins. It’s like art appraisal. You have to recognize not only the brush strokes but the chisel strokes to really get an idea of what’s what.”

In recent years, Bromberg has eased back into recording and performing. Two years ago he released The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing But the Blues, which, with its full-band, Chicago-style jams, should break the “folkie” tag once and for all. Yet he remains a master of solo performance and plans to play acoustic versions of many of the album’s tracks Sunday night. And as for the politics of our aquifer, Bromberg’s only too happy to support the cause. “The water thing is only now beginning to be important,” he notes. “It’s gonna get a lot more important. We’re almost over oil. But water, I don’t know if there’s a way past water.”

The Concert to Protect Our Aquifer, Sunday, December 9th, 7–10 p.m.,
St. John’s United Methodist Church, 1207 Peabody Ave.; Tickets, $50-$100.

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

Merf’s Up: A Cabernet for the Holidays

For reasons never fully explained to me, my in-laws kick off the holidays by having Thanksgiving on the Sunday before the rest of the country. I assume this is because the engaging Mrs. M’s grandfather was English and never took the whole Pilgrim thing very seriously. So I served crawfish étoufée, because nothing says “America” like some French/Spanish colonial fusion dish served to the English.
It got me thinking about the avalanche of facing several Christmas parties, actually Christmas, a non-denominational mid-winter shindig or two, and that perennial amateur night for bad drunks, New Year’s Eve.

Which is exactly why your holiday wine list is different — the hootenanny is coming, and you’ll want to brace yourself. Since last January you’ve been on and off diets and cleanses, avoided starches, red meats, sugars, and everything else that makes life bearable. Your wines — even the reds — have likely been light, drinkable little numbers that would never think of getting into a brawl with a three-bean salad. Now the holidays are here and it’s no jaunt, but a grueling slog of bon homme and good damn cheer.

I was contemplating this and other terrifying ordeals while wandering that intriguing maze that is Gaslight Liquor Shoppe on Summer Avenue, when I happened upon a liquor rep named Jacques having a tasting of some new-to-the-market reds: specifically a cabernet sauvignon called Merf. The wine is the brain-child of a restless man named David “Merf” Merfeld — a former Iowa farmer, brewer, and now, evidently, vintner in Washington State. I just liked the name, for obvious reasons. At $10.99, I liked the price, too.

Now, this is a nice, workable holiday wine — a fruit-forward cabernet that’s big on plum and dark cherry. I tend to favor the earthy cabernets; this was jammy. Despite the fruit, Merf managed to stay somewhat dry with little hints of vanilla and toffee. Even if the big, fruit-forward thing isn’t entirely your bag, remember what you are up against, food wise, for the next month. Your system is in for a shock, and you’ll need to stay in the proper humor of the thing if you want to be invited back. This is a bottle that will stand up to barbecue, ham, liver pâte, dips, swell stinky cheeses, or anything a sane person is likely to throw on the Big Green Egg. For dessert, refill your glass and dive into enough rich dark chocolate to fill a mop bucket.

Granted, Merf Cabernet just may overpower and brutalize your kale salad with vinaigrette, but if we’re going to be honest with ourselves, that is pretty much a non-issue until sometime in mid-first quarter of 2019, at the earliest.

Which makes me glad that I broke down and tried some, because I have something of a low-key dislike for people trying to sell me anything. That, and I can’t shake the feeling that Washington State is a second rate place to make wine — I keep thinking of rain and those sparkling vampires my daughter used to be into. Of course, I feel wrong: The difference between the southeast corner of Washington and Northern California is just a squiggle on the map, and it is becoming one of the major wine-producing regions of the country. So they showed me.

Being a successful liquor rep, Jacques ignored my concerns about Washington State wine and started talking about holiday food. He mentioned that his mother (presumably the same nice lady that named him Jacques) was serving up her special étoufée. I admitted that I’d just terrorized my in-laws with my less-special version of the same. Then a bond was formed, some tiny fraternity of people who stew shellfish for the holidays as opposed to pretending to honor those constipated political refugees up in Plymouth.

Holidays or not, this is exactly why I hate when people try to sell me stuff.

Categories
Book Features Books

Jonathan Lethem’s The Feral Detective.

Jonathan Lethem is one of our most versatile writers. From his early sci-fi novels to his National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Motherless Brooklyn and his The Fortress of Solitude, his restless imagination has never settled; he’s not written the same book twice.

This new novel, The Feral Detective, belongs to what you might call the smart-ass noir subgenre, novels that use the tropes of the detective story with heartfelt respect, leavened by a wink to the audience. Other writers who have done this include Thomas Pynchon, Thomas Berger, and William Kotzwinkle. Lethem can make with the hardboiled patter: “That coffee was a wiper blade, cutting a window for my brain to peer through.”

The first-person narrative comes via Phoebe Siegler, who seeks out the titular detective, Charles Heist, to help her find a friend’s daughter, Arabella, who has disappeared, either kidnapped or a runaway. It’s as if Brigid O’Shaughnessy is telling the tale of The Maltese Falcon and Sam Spade is a secondary character. It’s an interesting set-up, made believable by Lethem’s ability to take on a female character’s voice. Plus, this story takes place just after Trump has won the election, and that colors everything that happens, casting an irreal, dark penumbra over events already bleak and daunting. Phoebe fantasizes about her adventure and then says, “That such thinking was fucking insane didn’t make it less consoling. We lived in a fucking insane world. Such thinking might be the right gear for my expedition through it.”

Charles Heist, Private Investigator, never really solidifies for the reader, partly because Phoebe can’t get a handle on him, and it’s her story. He seems like the Marlboro Man who’s read Nietzsche and Reich and Camus, an unlikely hero for an incongruous time. We’re not given much of him because he speaks little. Sometimes he seems like only a reflection of our narrator’s romantic leanings, or the hero she believes she needs when she really only needs herself.

Phoebe thinks that Arabella may have gone in pursuit of Leonard Cohen’s ghost, so the search for the missing girl begins with a trip up Mount Baldy, where Cohen studied Buddhism under his spiritual guide Roshi. Eventually, their exploration takes them into the Mojave Desert and into a survivalist cult that is in the midst of a civil war between Bears (mostly men) and Rabbits (mostly women). Partly, Phoebe takes up this idealistic expedition out of despair and depression engendered by the squatter in the White House. Out of the nation’s miasma she is trying to find something that makes sense, and rescuing a friend’s daughter from bad guys seems to have sincere meaning for her.

Phoebe falls hard for the laconic Heist, and she loses sight of the prize as she begins an affair with the detective. This complicates their dangerous, desert sojourn, and the original case becomes something else, something more personal and, hence, thornier. “I felt closer than ever to Heist,” she says. “We had different styles. I made myself candid in fickle bursts, he reciprocated with marathon ruminations or silence. He’d led me into his desert.” Here, Heist becomes even more of a wavering mirage, flickering into view because of Phoebe’s reheated passion.

For a while, their target is the leader of the Bears, a mountain of a man, who goes by the moniker of Solitary Love. (“Crazy-ass Love’ll never be brought down alive, and to kill him outright might require a bazooka.”) But this is a quest with numerous hairpin turns. What is sought keeps changing as the story mutates and zigzags.

The denouement of this rollicking, sometimes absurd tale is a wild ride through perilous territory. It’s like The Rockford Files crossed with a Pynchonian search for something numinous. It’s also occasionally very funny. Lethem keeps the Mad Max action in the forefront and the philosophy as backwash. We care what happens because Phoebe is believable, appealing, and endearing. Ultimately, Lethem proves that the phrase “literary page-turner” is not an oxymoron.

Categories
News News Blog

Treadaway Withdraws Bid for District 1 Council Seat

Lonnie Treadaway, Rhonda Logan

Lonnie Treadaway withdrew his bid for the vacant Memphis City Council District 1 seat Wednesday at the council’s first daily standing meeting, called as an attempt to reach a quorum.

This comes a day after four council members supporting candidate Rhonda Logan staged a walkout during Tuesday’s meeting. That meeting was a continuation of the council’s November 20th meeting that ended in a deadlock after nine hours of voting.

The council’s Wednesday meeting was the first of an indefinite number of standing meetings scheduled until there is a quorum, or at least seven of the 10 members. Council members Kemp Conrad, Ford Canale, Worth Morgan, Frank Colvett, and Chairman Berlin Boyd were in attendance, while the four who walked out Tuesday — Patrice Robinson, Martavious Jones, Jamita Swearengen, and Joe Brown — didn’t show.

Council Attorney Allen Wade read a statement on behalf of absent council member Reid Hedgepeth, who withdrew his support for Treadaway. Wade followed by announcing that Treadaway would be withdrawing as he doesn’t feel the council would reach a consensus between Logan and himself.

“There was a deadlock and neither one of us was going to get the seven votes,” Treadaway said. “The city couldn’t move forward, so I thought it would be best to withdraw my name. Hopefully, they can come up with a candidate that can lead the city forward. I got in this to help the city, so far be it from me to hold the city back.”

Wade advised the council that Conrad should withdraw the motion opening the floor back up to all six candidates, which prompted the walkout Tuesday, saying that it will “clear the air” and “put the burden on the others.” This would give the supporters of Treadaway a chance to change their minds and potentially vote for Logan. Conrad agreed.

“I’m a pragmatic kind of person,” Conrad said. “It was obvious there wasn’t going to be a consensus. It seemed like a reasonable thing to do. None of it is personal to me.”

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Canale said he was “disappointed” in the meeting’s turnout Wednesday.

“We’re here to do the city’s business,” Canale said. “I’m disappointed and I’m a little sad. We have a lot of stuff on our agenda from yesterday we haven’t even heard.”

The council began voting on a District 1 appointee in November, narrowing it down to the two top vote-getters: Logan, executive director of the Raleigh Community Development Corp., and Treadaway, sales manager for Flinn Broadcasting Corp.

After the walkout and almost an hour of delay, the council discussed requesting attorneys for the city and Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) to file action in Chancery Court compelling the four members to attend the meeting so that business could continue. However, Wade said that’s not in the council’s purview, but that the respective attorneys could independently decide to take legal action.

“We’re trying to reach a compromise,” Wade said. “Nobody’s trying to make anybody be dragged to jail. I prefer they come back and we have a robust conversation.”

Now, the council will return to the vote for the District 1 seat at its December 18th meeting, in which it is also scheduled to fill the vacant Super District 8-2 and District 6 seats left vacant by Janis Fullilove and Edmund Ford Jr. in November.