Tag: Bill Morris

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Book Features Books

Bill Morris’ Legendary Life

Newcomers to the area might find themselves riding along the Bill Morris Parkway and wondering, “Who’s he?” Old-timers will likely know him well. But even among those who are aware of the former Shelby County Sheriff and Shelby County Mayor, there are few who know the whole story.

Now, at age 86, he’s published an autobiography that tells of a remarkable life that put him in the middle of history more than once. He and his wife, Ann, were friends with Elvis Presley for one thing (she knew the budding singer at Humes High School). And in 1968, Sheriff Morris took James Earl Ray into custody for the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Although the title is somewhat immodest — Bill Morris: A Legendary Life — it remains true that he did much to shape lives and institutions in Shelby County. He grew up in stark poverty in Mississippi with, he says, a severe inferiority complex, did a stint in the Army, and studied journalism at then-Memphis State University.

But he was a natural salesman and would go on to join the Jaycees, whose 800 members had some political clout. They backed him in a run for sheriff (“I had to learn how to spell sheriff,” he cracks), and he won in 1964, one of the youngest in Tennessee history and one who hadn’t been in law enforcement.

But he felt it was a virtue not to have baggage. That would be tested in short order. A month in, he gave an assignment to one of his officers who said, “I need to think about that. I need to go talk to Mr. Paul.” That was Paul Barret, an influential businessman and county leader. Morris replied, “That’s fine. Why don’t you go ahead and do that today? Because you don’t have a job here anymore. Maybe he can get you another one somewhere else.”

In 1964, African American officers couldn’t arrest white suspects, nor could they even ride with white officers. Women in the department weren’t paid the same amount of salary for the same jobs men held. Morris got those policies changed and would go on to initiate many community projects. “We became a community-based cooperative,” he says, “on behalf of all the citizens — black and white — in Shelby County.”

From 1978 to 1994, Morris served four terms as Shelby County Mayor, traveling to sell Memphis as a tourism destination and a business opportunity. He tried a run for governor in 1994, losing in the Democratic primary to Phil Bredesen.

When Ann was 61, she had a massive stroke and Morris devoted his life the next 19 years to her care until she died in 2016.

The book, written with Darrell B. Uselton, is available on Amazon. The authors will hold a book signing at Novel bookstore on Thursday, March 28th from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. For more info: billmorrisbook.com.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

Two Political Milestones in Shelby County

So it’s come to this: There is, as pointed out this week by state Young Democrat president London Lamar, only one “chartered Democratic organization in this county,” and it isn’t the Shelby County Democratic Party, a body which was officially “decertified” last Friday by state Democratic chair Mary Mancini. It is, in fact, the Shelby County Young Democrats, led by Lamar’s colleague Alvin Crook.

Surprisingly, given the fact that the SCDP was a hotbed of internal dispute, there was very little remorse at its passing. It would seem that Mancini’s action was widely regarded by all sides as something of a mercy killing.

Meanwhile, Lamar and Crook promise that the Shelby County YDs will  pursue “initiatives” and, in effect, act in the stead of the now defunct “state SCDP,” pending its reconstitution.

That reconstitution will take some doing, in that the party organization, as such, has been so locked into pointless disputation for some time as to have been of little consequence in influencing political results in Shelby County — at least to any positive end. 

In elections for local countywide office, only two Democrats — Assessor Cheyenne Johnson and General Sessions Clerk Ed Stanton Jr. — have been able to gain office and be re-elected in recent years. To rescue an often-abused phrase, their cases are the proverbial exceptions that prove the rule. Both Johnson and Stanton are county-government veterans with demonstrable records of competence and with support across partisan lines. Their success at the polls would seem to clearly debunk the claim made by losing Democratic nominees in every county election in this century that the defeats of party candidates must be due to some infamy or illegality perpetrated by the county’s Republican Party or by the admittedly error-prone Election Commission, with its current preponderance of three Republican members to two Democratic ones.

For whatever reason, in a county which, by the usual demographic and economic measures, should possess an overwhelming majority prone to voting Democratic, Republicans rule the roost instead. It is high time that local Democrats cease looking for the blame elsewhere and begin a long overdue reexamination of their own premises.

Under the circumstances, the plucky resolve of the county’s Young Democrats is a welcome first step.

Ann Morris

Speaking of pluck, the huge turnout this week at the visitation and funeral rites for Ann Ward Norton Morris, across various kinds of lines, political and otherwise, was in large part a testament to that quality in her life — as well as to the virtues of courage and perseverance, which Morris continued to demonstrate, even after a severely disabling stroke suffered in 1997 deprived her of most of the faculties which the rest of us take for granted. Remarkable also was the heroic care-giving service rendered unstintingly over that nearly 20-year period by her husband, former Sheriff and County Mayor Bill Morris, who regards that service, and not any office he gained, as the summit of his own life’s work. 

Categories
Opinion

Videotape of James Earl Ray in Memphis May be Salvaged

CREDIT: Amie Vanderford

Tom Leatherwood and Bill Morris

Coming soon to a theater near you: James Earl Ray in the Shelby County Jail, a production of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department with videotape shot by former sheriff and noted cinematographer A. C. Gilless.

If all goes well, videotape of Ray in the jail in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King could be restored within months. The tapes were discovered this year by Register Tom Leatherwood and the staff at the Shelby County Archives. They have not been handled for fear of damaging them. Bids have gone out to restore the tapes and should be back next week.

“It’s an obsolete format, that’s the problem. Plus, it’s more than 40 years old,” said Leatherwood. “We’re fast tracking this.”

After he was captured in London, Ray was flown to Memphis in July of 1968. Former county mayor Bill Morris, who was sheriff at that time, went aboard the plane when it landed in Millington and read Ray his rights. Morris said that is on tape, as are historic scenes of Ray being taken into the jail and being interviewed. Gilless, who was a deputy at the time and later was elected sheriff, was the photographer and videographer.

“It’s going to be fun to watch,” said Morris.