As a slate of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is headed to the Tennessee legislature this week, community leaders and advocates are speaking out.
For the week of March 4th, 18 pieces of legislation are scheduled for hearings in the Tennessee General Assembly.
“Legislation before House and Senate committees this week targets diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, makes it easier to ban books, and attempts to legalize discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” leaders said in a statement prior to the meeting.
Molly Whitehorn, regional campaign director for the Human Rights Campaign, said the state currently leads the way on “discriminatory trends” in the country.
“It has passed more anti-LGBTQ+ laws than any other state, with more than a dozen passed since 2015,” Whitehorn said. “This week alone we are seeing discriminatory adoption bans, gender-affirming care bans, a bill to dissolve the Human Rights Commission with no wind-down period, and even a bill revising K-12 non-discrimination policies moving through the legislature.”
Opponents of the proposed legislation, including Whitehorn, held a press conference over Zoom to condemn the upcoming bills and explain the harm that previous laws have caused.
Rep. Justin J. Pearson (D-Memphis) called this upcoming week “alarming for our democracy,” as these bills represent a continued attack on LGBTQ+ people in the state. He also said there are more pressing issues that lawmakers should be concerned with, such as poverty and housing.
“The reality is that in this legislature, division and separation and othering of communities is what is consistently causing pain, hurt, and heartache to our most marginalized communities,” Pearson said. “It’s hard to be on the House floor and see people talking about banning pride flags, but not talk about banning assault weapons that are killing children across our state and across our country.
Molly Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis, said it’s “astonishing” that the LGBTQ+ community has to continuously defend themselves against attacks such as the list of proposed bills to be heard this week.
“That means there is no other single subject receiving this much attention in the halls of our legislative branch this week,” Quinn said. “There are so many essential issues affecting communities in Tennessee right now, and we need our lawmakers to be focusing on what our communities truly need and not using these bullying tactics to distract from other social problems.”
Quinn said the effects of these bills “trickle down into the community,” explaining that the effects of discriminatory bills last year caused more young people to reach out to OUTMemphis than ever before, as many had faced discrimination in school settings. Quinn added they had a “three times” increase of people reaching out to their emergency services.
“It was unlike anything we had ever seen,” said Quinn.
Quinn said attacks on the transgender community reached “unprecedented political levels” last year. In the previous session, the Tennessee legislature passed legislation that made it illegal for healthcare providers to administer puberty blockers and other forms of gender-affirming care to minors.
Another attack targeting transgender people in the state involved the dismissal of a lawsuit which would have allowed individuals to change their gender markers on their birth certificate. As a result of this, TaMesha Kaye Prewitt, transgender service manager for OUTMemphis, said she went into “emergency response mode” after this decision. She said her community is “exhausted and brokenhearted” by the continuous attacks by the Tennessee legislature.
“I live and work alongside a community of courageous trans individuals, but we are fed up and see the harms of these bills,” said Kaye Prewitt. “Each time these bills become law, we see the real impact up close on families and individuals.”
The Tennessee Equality Project has dubbed these bills the “Slate of Hate,” and a full list and description can be found here.
Justin J. Pearson +
Oceana Gilliam (Photo: Courtesy Justin J. Pearson + Oceana Gilliam)
The annual big freeze seems to have gone, but what could have dispensed with the cold Memphis weather? Perhaps it’s all the love in the air. With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, be uplifted by the stories of three Bluff City couples who navigated their own twisty, windy paths to love. Their tales will thaw both the frostiest days, and our cold, frozen hearts.
Justin J. Pearson + Oceana R. Gilliam
Oceana Gilliam says she met Justin Pearson in 2016 at Princeton University. “Justin and I, we both did this program together called the … what is it?”
“Policy International Affairs Junior Summer Institute,” says Justin, finishing her thought, as the couple are prone to do.
“We were both juniors in college going into our senior year,” Oceana continues. “I was really smitten, I think, when I first saw him, because even then, when we were just in college, he would have on his suit. When he would introduce himself, he would stand up and say, ‘Hello, I’m Justin J. Pearson.’ I was just like, oh my God, I really love that. He was always so kind. He’s always so sweet.”
“She was this very cute Black girl who was speaking Russian and singing in Russian at this program,” Justin recalls. “There was a song that I had just learned by Leon Bridges. One of the lines is ‘Brown skin girl with the polka-dot dress on.’ I love the song and I remember sending that to her, so I liked her a lot.”
Oceana, who was “born and raised in South Central,” Los Angeles, went to grad school at UCLA, while Pearson was all the way across North America at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, before leading the charge to stop the Byhalia Pipeline with Memphis Community Against the Pipeline. (After their victory, the environmental justice organization changed its name to reflect a wider focus on pollution.) “Even though we didn’t get together, it’s like the flame never went away,” says Justin. “Which is why I kept pursuing, probably more than she was. I was in the DMs between 2016 and literally 2020.
“We reconnected because I actually went to L.A. and I saw her for 30 minutes before I gave a speech. She was in grad school at UCLA getting her master’s in public policy. And so anytime I would talk to her — which was very little over those few years — she was just doing some amazing stuff for policy and political science things. But then we had Covid, and we had the summer of Black Death with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, these lynchings going on. She was protesting a lot in Los Angeles, and I was starting to get more engaged and involved in things in Memphis because we just moved back home. Then we had the pipeline fight in Memphis, and we really started to connect and bond and talk. She was a big support system during that time, too.”
“We really, really connected during the pandemic — we’re one of those pandemic bae couples,” says Oceana. “It was such a difficult and hard time. He was someone that I could really turn to, and he was always there for me. … We would literally be working with each other — I’ll be on a work meeting, he’ll be on a work call, but we have our Zooms on or our FaceTime on mute. We spend hours and hours together.”
When Justin broached the subject of running for the Tennessee House of Representatives to Gilliam, “At that point I could really see it,” she says. “He was already doing a lot of great work with MCAP, and I saw how he spoke out against trying to build this pipeline between people’s homes and take land. And so when he decided to say, ‘Hey, I want to run for office,’ I was with him fully and completely. I feel like that was a great path for him. He’s really passionate about this work, but he’s also very genuine. He’s very serious.
“Just from my own experience, being around other type of politicians, what I really appreciate about Justin the most is that the work that he does, he really does it from the heart. After going around with him, door knocking, meeting people in Westwood and other parts of Memphis and Millington, people really, really love Justin.”
As Justin grappled with the decision to run for office, the couple took a road trip from L.A. to Memphis. “You’re on the diving board and you’re like, am I really going to jump? We kept getting all these signs that this is the right thing to do. I remember, I was driving and I was like, ‘We going to do it, right? We going to do it? We were in Texas, and this huge cross kind of appeared out of nowhere, seemingly. And it was like, yeah, we’re going to do this thing.”
After Justin won a special election in 2023, Oceana was going to return to Los Angeles, but instead got caught up in what Justin calls “the most wild week ever known to humanity,” where he was sworn in to the house, brought the post-Covenant School shooting protests against gun violence onto the State House floor, and was then impeached and temporarily expelled from the Legislature. “That was such a difficult time,” she says. “I was in the gallery every single day with him. It was really something else.”
Justin and Oceana got engaged at her birthday party in 2023. They plan on tying the knot in the spring of 2025. “You get triumphs, or you get tragedies, that bring people together,” says Pearson. — Chris McCoy
Amir Hadadzadeh and Sepideh Dashti (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Sepideh Dashti + Amir Hadadzadeh
Amir Hadadzadeh and Sepideh Dashti met some 10 years ago in Iran — they’d met a few times actually, but mostly in passing. Amir’s university friend married Sepideh’s sister, so they were bound to get to know each other one day.
At the time, Amir was studying in Canada, and Sepideh was still in Iran. On a visit back home, Amir had been tasked with dropping off something from his friend and his wife to Sepideh. “I knocked on the door,” Amir reminisces, “and someone — Sepideh — just opened the door a little bit and a hand came out, grabbed the thing, and went in. She didn’t even show her face.” This day, it turned out, wouldn’t be the day that Amir and Sepideh got to know each other, but they laugh about it now.
Instead, Amir says he kept thinking about her while he was studying for his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He was drawn to her seriousness. “She didn’t care about any guy. I mean, there was no one,” he says. “And then I decided to call, so it started from there.”
“Actually, we would chat [over Skype and Yahoo Messenger],” Sepideh corrects. “We were too shy to talk.”
But in 2009, the internet in Iran was not stable as the government sought to tighten its control. “We would start to chat with each other. And in the middle of the chat, the government decided to shut down the internet,” Amir says, “and we were not able to really have a deep conversation. It was very tough for us.”
“The internet shutdown happened,” Sepideh says, “and that was a moment we felt that [we would make a good couple] because then our conversations stopped for several days and I remember Amir’s sister called me and said, ‘Amir is very worried for you and asked me to tell you not to go outside because they arrested someone for protesting the election.’”
And so, Amir and Sepideh kept chatting, sending messages when the internet allowed, and eventually graduated to phone calls and video calls after the shyness wore off. After a few months, Amir returned to Iran and proposed. “She accepted,” Amir says. They had about a month together before Amir returned to Canada, and they could only see each other a few hours a day. “Sometimes we had to be sneaky,” Amir says with a smirk.
A year later, they were married. “We only had 10 days to be really close to each other [after the wedding before Amir had to go back to school],” Sepideh says. She was able to get her visa six months later, so they could finally be together in the same country. The day they reunited was April 15, 2011, Amir recalls immediately.
Since then, they’ve moved from Canada to Memphis, with Amir taking a job at the University of Memphis as a professor of mechanical engineering. Sepideh, meanwhile, is something of a multi-hyphenate as an art instructor at the Kroc Center, adjunct faculty at U of M, a Ph.D. candidate in educational psychology and research, and an artist who explores identity, womanhood, and the body. “I always tell her, ‘You are an internationally recognized artist. You should acknowledge that,’” Amir adds when he boasts about his wife’s accomplishments.
“He’s why I can manage,” Sepideh says, “especially with two kids. Honestly. … Like, even, I can say now in our parenting that we are very involved. So I’m very serious and I get mad and angry very easily, so most of the time I ask, ‘Can you manage this?’ I think his humorous sense has helped to engage with kids, make them calm, and make me calm.”
With both their families back in Iran, the two have found support and comfort in each other. “I think sometimes I feel this attachment is too much because when he goes somewhere for a seminar that is not in Memphis, I’m so stressed,” Sepideh says.
“We’ve imagined what would happen if we were back in Iran and discussed that a lot,” Amir says, “and we’ve concluded that we wouldn’t be as happy as what we have here. … I only wish that I would have met her earlier. That’s the only regret that I have. I wish we would have met, I don’t know, 10 years, at least five years earlier. [For now,] I’ll just admire her, love her, try to make her laugh.”
“We hope to grow old together,” Sepideh adds, “and watch our children become independent and lead fulfilling lives, just as our parents wished for us.” — Abigail Morici
Mario + Kristin Linagen-Monterosso (Photo: Justin Fox Burks)
Mario + Kristin Linagen-Monterosso
I happened to be present the moment sparks flew between Mario Monterosso and Kristin Linagen. As Kristin recounts it, “Mario asked a mutual friend about me, and she said, ‘You know, she’s single now, if you’re asking about her.’ And he reached out to me via social media and said, ‘Hey, I’m playing at DKDC tonight. I’d love to see you.’”
Monterosso, of course, is the celebrated Italian guitarist who moved to Memphis years ago to follow his dream of living in the birthplace of the music he loved most. He soon became an integral part of the roots music scene here. Last May, as James and the Ultrasounds, with me on keys, held court at Bar DKDC, Mario sat in with us and we all did a double take: He was on fire that night.
Yet it was Mario’s winning personality more than his musicianship that caught Kristin’s eye. “You know, it was fate,” she says now. “We went out for a couple cocktail nights, and then he said, ‘Hey, I’d like to take you out. I’d like to court you.’ And I’m a traditional woman, I’m old-fashioned, so I just loved that idea. I thought he was a cool guy.”
Kristin has an ear for music herself. “I love music,” she says. “I played the guitar growing up. I’m not much of a guitar player now, but I picked it up when we first started dating. Just to show him a little bit because I still remember all the songs I grew up playing in high school.”
While her real calling has been her own business, Therapeutic Touch Massage, opened after she studied at the Massage Institute of Memphis, Kristin clearly loves the arts. That may be why Mario decided that they must visit New York together. “After about a month of dating, he said, ‘Hey, I want to take you to New York,’” Kristin recalls. “It was June of last year, and we planned the trip for December. And we said, ‘You know, even if things don’t work out, we’re still going to go together.’ So we made a pact! I mean, we spit on our hands and shook on it and everything. You know, we go all the way!”
Mario smiles at this memory, then adds, “Being in New York with someone I love was always a big thing to me. But I’d never done it before.” Meanwhile, unbeknownst to him, his new amore had similar feelings about the Big Apple.
“Three years ago, I had this fantasy of being in New York with a man that I love over Christmas,” recalls Kristin. “And when he asked me to go, I thought, ‘Wow, this man is making my dreams come true. Are we making each other’s dreams come true?’ And by the time December comes along, and we’re all in, I’m thinking, ‘Okay, he loves New York. He loves me. Maybe he will propose?’”
She kept that to herself, though, as they embraced the city’s energy. “He took me to a Broadway show, Some Like it Hot,” Kristin recalls. “Then we walked to Rockefeller Center and experienced the crowd and the Christmas tree and Radio City Music Hall. And then we went to Sardi’s for dinner.”
After their meal, Kristin made a suggestion. “I said, ‘Let’s finish our wine upstairs, more privately, where we can look out the window at the Shubert Theatre. That’ll be fun!’ And of course he loves this idea, because it’s my idea, but he has things planned that I don’t know.”
That’s when Mario excused himself and pretended to visit the restroom. “It was the moment,” he says, “where I was thinking, ‘Do I do it now? Do I do it now?’ The ring was in my pocket!”
“He comes back and goes right into it,” says Kristin. “He just says, ‘Can I be direct with you?’ And he pulled out a red velvet box and said, ‘Kristin, will you marry me?’ I said, ‘Yes!’ And I ran up to the bar. ‘We need two glasses of champagne!’ Everybody applauded and we had a great evening from then on. And then the next morning, I woke up at 4 a.m. with a fever, shivering and sweating. I had gotten the flu!”
It was a perfect moment of “in sickness and in health,” and Mario dutifully cared for his beloved through the rest of their stay. By the time another month went by, Mario and Kristin Linegan-Monterosso had eloped. Nowadays, if you happen to see them, they’re likely to be beaming. — Alex Greene
Justin J. Pearson and Gloria Johnson (left) march to a Shelby County Commission meeting in April. (Photo: Andrea Morales for MLK50)
On July 27, 2023, the Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation of the Memphis Police Department. Although the investigation comes six months after the beating death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the MPD, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said the investigation was not prompted by any single incident, but rather by multiple reports of violence and racism which suggested fundamental problems with the department’s standards and practices.
“It can’t be overstated how important it is, and what a critical opportunity this is for our community,” says Josh Spickler, founder of Just City, a nonprofit devoted to criminal justice reform.
Around the same time the DOJ announced its investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation released its 2022 crime report, which breaks down all reported crimes and arrests in each jurisdiction. As reported in “What’s Wrong With The MPD?,” the previous Memphis Flyer story in this series, MPD’s 2021 clearance rate, the ratio of crimes reported to arrests made, was 22 percent. In 2022, it fell to 18 percent.
Josh Spickler (Photo: Andrea Morales for MLK50)
Clearance rates have been falling across the country for years. In 1960, the national clearance rate for murder was higher than 90 percent; today, that number is just over 50 percent. The Nashville Metro Police Department’s 2022 clearance rate was 25 percent.
Even so, the MPD’s ineffectiveness, as measured by their own standards, is shocking, especially given that the police department’s $284 million budget represents 39 percent of the total city budget. “If we talk about the basics of government function, which our current mayor does quite a bit, one of the basic responsibilities of a police department is to try to solve crime. Eighty-two percent of the time, they’re failing to do that,” says Spickler. “Hopefully we will have some really frank conversations about the results of the [DOJ] investigation. We have to have accountability for this police department because that’s what leads to trust. Trust leads to solving crimes, which leads to this clearance rate going up, which leads to people who commit crime and harm us being held accountable. That’s what we all ultimately want.”
Renardo Baker, far right, executive director of I Shall Not Die But Live! and his Memphis Allies SWITCH (Support With Intention to Create Hope) team. They are the newest ally organization — joining LifeLine to Success and Neighborhood Christian Centers — fielding SWITCH teams alongside Youth Villages. Baker’s group launched Memphis Allies work in Orange Mound. (Photo: Courtesy Youth Villages)
Guns Everywhere
When you talk about crime in Tennessee, guns are the elephant in the room. According to the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, gun-related violent incidents have been climbing steadily since 2016. So far this year, gun crime is up 11 percent over 2022.
Guns are everywhere in Tennessee, and that’s how the Republican supermajority in the legislature likes it. In 2021, the Tennessee State Legislature made it legal for almost anyone to carry a firearm without a permit. After the March 2023 Covenant School shooting in Nashville, where a former student killed three children and three teachers with a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle, a student-led protest movement urged the legislature to pass red flag laws, which would allow authorities to confiscate guns from people who are deemed dangerous to themselves or others. When Democratic state representatives Justin J. Pearson, Justin Jones, and Gloria Johnson brought the protests into the House chamber, the Republican supermajority responded by expelling Pearson and Jones, both of whom are Black. (Johnson, who is white, missed expulsion by one vote.) President Joe Biden called the expulsions “shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.” Both Pearson and Jones were easily reelected to their seats earlier this month in time to participate in a special session called by Governor Bill Lee, ostensibly to address the state’s exploding epidemic of gun violence.
“The erosion of our protections from gun safety legislation has led to a direct increase of the number of funerals of children that we go to and the number of people in our community who are being killed because of gun violence,” says Pearson. “Gun violence is the number-one killer of children because of the decisions of the Tennessee state legislature that invoked permitless carry and that have put the values of the Tennessee Firearms Association, American Firearms Association, and the National Rifle Association over the lives of people.
“We need to have more laws that protect kids, not guns,” Pearson continues. “We need laws such as extreme risk protection orders that take guns away from people who are domestically abusing their spouses. We need laws that strengthen background checks to make sure people who are getting access to guns who shouldn’t have them no longer have them. We need to be able to track where these guns are coming from and how they are getting into our community. Memphis doesn’t have any gun manufacturers, yet we have this extreme amount of gun violence. We need to figure out why that is and who is proliferating and profiting off of the pain and suffering we are experiencing.”
Recent proposals before the city council would repeal permitless carry in Memphis and ban the sale of assault rifles. Many assume that if these proposals passed, the Republican supermajority in the state legislature would simply preempt them. “In fact, our racist Speaker Cameron Sexton said that he was an ‘overseer’ to more progressive cities,” says Pearson. “The reality is, we are always going to be facing the issue of preemption. Our state legislators who represent Memphis and Shelby County, they’re going to have to start standing tall and speaking up and using their voices.”
Pearson says the Black communities in Tennessee are disproportionately affected by gun violence. Twelve percent of Tennesseans are Black, but they represent 38 percent of crime victims in the TBI report. “I buried a friend this year,” says Representative Pearson. “Last year, I buried a mentor who died from gun violence. This is not normal.”
Daniel Muhammad, of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, leads a training for Memphis Allies staff. (Photo: Courtesy Youth Villages)
What Won’t Work
Is the solution to Memphis’ crime problem simply to hire more police officers? “There is evidence that the presence of police has an impact on crime, which feeds this [faulty] argument that we just need more of ’em,” says Spickler.
While people are less likely to commit crime in the presence of a police officer, the assumption that a bigger police department leads to safer communities does not hold up to scientific scrutiny. A meta study published in the August 2016 Journal of Experimental Criminology collected all available data about police force size and crime rates from 1968 to 2013. The researchers found that “The overall effect size for police force size on crime is negative, small, and not statistically significant,” and that “Changing policing strategy is likely to have a greater impact on crime than adding more police.”
A just-published report from Catalyst California and ACLU of Southern California crunched data on sheriff’s offices throughout their state. “A common, long-held belief is that communities need to greatly invest in law enforcement — rather than other potential safety solutions — to prevent serious violence from occurring,” the authors wrote. “This ‘tough on crime’ approach views law enforcement as the primary (if not sole) solution to protect community members from heinous harms like homicide, robbery, and assault. It presumes that law enforcement agencies significantly focus their efforts on responding to calls for help (e.g. 911) from community members in imminent danger, and that their actions are an effective means of harm prevention.”
Instead, the study found that California sheriff’s departments spent very little time actually responding to calls for help. In Los Angeles County, only 11 percent of deputies’ time was spent on “service calls.” The rest of the time was spent on traffic stops, two-thirds of which were non-moving violations used as a pretext to search for drugs and weapons.
While this study did not cover Tennessee, it is consistent with a larger pattern in modern policing. The incident that ended in Tyre Nichols’ death began as a pretextual traffic stop by the MPD’s SCORPION unit. “The reality is that things like ‘jump out squads’ have been happening in communities, especially poor communities of color, for generations,” says Spickler.
“Fundamentally, we have to rethink the Memphis Police Department,” he says. “I think that it needs to be replaced with something broader than a police department — something more along the lines of an office of public safety that includes not just armed people in cars patrolling, but also people who can be responsive to some of the drivers of what people think of as crime but are really more nuisances or public health issues.
“Administrative things like traffic and car tags, mental illness, homelessness — those are all things that we can respond to in another way. It will keep us from having things like Tyre Nichols or the many, many other use-of-force incidents we’re familiar with. This department needs to essentially go away and be rebuilt and rebranded as something different than an occupying force that is out there trying desperately to do something about crime. It’s no knock on the people out there trying, wearing the badges. That’s an impossible task. Let’s give them a job that they can accomplish instead of just sending them in to fail.”
Signs of Hope
K. Durell Cowan knows the effects of injustice first hand. In 2010, his uncle died in police custody in Richmond, Virginia. In 2015, a friend asked Cowan to give him a ride. The friend had just been robbed, and Cowan says, “He ended up seeing the guy who actually robbed him that day, and [my friend] killed him. Just because I’m a big Black guy in Memphis, no one would believe that I had no involvement in the thing. I was charged with first-degree murder.”
K. Durell Cowan (Photo: Courtesy Heal 901)
Cowan avoided serious jail time, but he lost his job as an office manager. His life in ruins, “I was admitted into two mental hospitals in Memphis. In the middle of a mental episode, a voice came to me and said, ‘If you had another chance in life, what would you do?’ … Heal 901 was created from taking my pain and turning it into power.”
Heal 901 began by feeding the homeless and bringing social services to people who could not access them. In 2019, a brawl erupted at a basketball game between Westwood High School and Fairley High School. In the aftermath, Cowan stepped in to mediate between the feuding groups. The experience inspired him to expand his conflict-resolution efforts to the streets of South Memphis. “We look at gun violence at Heal 901 as a public-health issue, understanding that guns are readily available, and that we have been desensitized when it comes to the value of life.”
Heal 901’s crew of violence interventionists are drawn from “those who have been part of the justice system,” Cowan explains. “We give them the opportunity to go and fix the same neighborhoods that some of them played a part in destroying. We work closely with the Shelby County Office of Reentry, Probation, and Parole to find qualified candidates to go out and do this work. … My staff walks into an environment where people are walking around holding AR-15s, AK-47s, long guns, short guns, extended high-capacity magazines. And they’re out there with nothing but a cell phone.”
Heal 901’s current target area is the New Horizon Apartment Complex at Winchester and Millbranch. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that when you hear loud yelling and commotion, those verbal altercations lead to physical altercations, which lead to gun violence. That’s the flow; that’s the formula. You have to interrupt as soon as you hear the chitter-chatter.”
The interventionists defuse volatile situations. “You tell them that you care about them as an individual, to take the time to help them associate themselves with reality. Like, hey, this is probably not the best move when you got children who depend on you. Gun violence is not something that takes a long time to do. It takes less than three seconds to pull a gun and pull the trigger. So you have to intervene quickly and have someone thinking of something else before they make that decision. Because it’s now to a point that people are reacting with these weapons.”
Susan Deason (Photo: Courtesy Youth Villages)
Susan Deason is executive director of Memphis Allies, an initiative that was launched by Youth Villages in 2021 to reduce gun violence in Memphis and Shelby County. She says, “This is a collaborative initiative that engages multiple other organizations in addition to Youth Villages to serve those at highest risk for involvement with gun violence and to provide services to those individuals to change the trajectory that they have been on previously.
“We serve individuals anywhere from the ages of 12 to 30 and above. There’s a few criteria we look at, and of course you also have to get to know the individual to understand their particular circumstances. But typically it would be somebody who does have an extensive history with the legal system. So they may have already received some weapons charges. They have recently, within the past 12 to 18 months, been shot or shot at. They have close friends or family members who have been recently shot or shot at. They are typically out of school or unemployed and are also typically involved in a gang or a crew.”
Deason says most people are looking for a way out of their violent circumstances. “While there are individuals who don’t need to be out on the streets based on the crime that they committed, ultimately we believe everybody needs a chance to be rehabilitated and to make different choices — and oftentimes, someone who is at highest risk and who is involved in gun violence doesn’t really know about those other opportunities, or hasn’t had somebody to help them make those changes. And it’s very difficult to make a complete lifestyle change on your own.”
Cowan agrees it’s important to help people understand they’re not alone. “It’s sad to hear adults say that they’re afraid of children, and these children are literally asking for help.”
In April 2022, Mayor Strickland appointed Jimmie H. Johnson, a 12-year MPD veteran, as the administrator for the city of Memphis’ Group Violence Intervention Program. “We’ve contracted with 901 Bloc Squad as our street intervention team, and they have staffed up to approximately 100 individuals,” Johnson says. “They are mainly out there in the neighborhood, staying abreast of what’s going on between groups, keeping street beefs down to a minimum. We have approximately eight hospital interventionists that are assigned to and at the disposal of Regional One, and we’re soon to be in Methodist North Hospital. We want to expand to every hospital in the city.”
Johnson’s “credible messengers” talk to people with fresh gunshot wounds. “When somebody’s being transported to the hospital, you have to go to them and say, ‘We’d like to stop this cycle of violence. We wanna help you.’”
Root Causes
Throughout history, crime and violence have always been associated with poverty. It’s no coincidence that the American cities with the highest crime rates, including Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Memphis, are among the country’s poorest cities. According to the University of Memphis’ 2022 Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet, 23 percent of Memphians live below the poverty level, 10 points higher than the national average. Thirty-three percent of Memphis’ children are impoverished, almost double the national average of 17 percent. “The most important thing that we can do to deal with gun violence and gun violence prevention is to deal with the issue of poverty,” says Pearson. “If we don’t address root causes of economic inequality and racial injustice in Memphis and Shelby County in Tennessee, then these types of issues like gun violence are going to continuously be entrenched in policies and practices of the legislature and of people in positions of power.”
While there are signs of hope on the poverty front, restoring the community’s trust in policing will be a long, painstaking process. “It’s not one switch that we just haven’t found yet,” says Spickler. “One day, we can get to a trust place again, but it ain’t gonna be anytime soon until we deal with the past and plot a course for the future.”
So, okay, Justin J. Pearson may be, in the words of state Senator Raumesh Akbari, who introduced him Tuesday before the Rotary Club of Memphis, the political figure “who’s next,” but Pearson speaks only of the task before him, which is to win re-election as state Representative of District 86 in the Tennessee House.
The first step will be to defeat someone named David Page in a special Democratic primary, which takes place next Thursday, June 15th. After that, he’ll be up against whatever Republican may be on the August 3rd special general election ballot, along with an independent candidate named Jeff Johnston.
Nobody doubts that Pearson will easily jump these hurdles, which became his lot as a consequence of his being expelled by the Republican supermajority of the House back in April along with Rep. Justin Jones of Nashville. Those two along with Rep. Gloria Johnson of Knoxville became known as the “Tennessee Three” for disputing the regular order of the House to engage in some passionate special pleading for gun safety legislation.
Pearson and Jones were immediately sent back to the House by votes of the Shelby County Commission and the Davidson County Metro Council, respectively, but to return to their full terms, they were required to win a new special election.
In Pearson’s case, that will be yet another special election to add to the one he won earlier this year to succeed the late Barbara Cooper in District 86. Counting his primary and general election wins back then (which included his first appointment by the Commission in between), and the primary and general election victories still to come, Pearson will, by next August, have been voted in for what he calls “a Guinness Book record” of five times.
In any case, Pearson, who came to prominence as the leader of the successful 2021 community effort to prevent installation of an oil pipeline that would cut through South Memphis and danger the Memphis aquifer, is, just as Akbari suggested, the person of the moment.
Pearson reminded the Rotarians: “The last time that I was fortunate to be in front of this group was talking about halting this pipeline. The call to action for us was whether or not a multibillion dollar corporation could come in to Memphis and build a crude oil pipeline that could threaten all of our drinking water.
“The corporation’s thought was if they were going to exploit Black people, white folks in Memphis would cave, rich folks in Memphis wouldn’t pay attention … But what they found was that we had power enough and sense enough to build what Heather McGhee calls the solidarity dividend, where white folks and Black folks and rich folks and poor folks work collaboratively to create just solutions where we all benefit.”
Pearson stated his belief that “the only way that we win is if we — every day, every month, every year, every election — choose the solidarity dividend over entrenched separations ….
“There is no two Memphises is allowed. There are no two Shelby counties allowed. We are all going to benefit from what happens in this place, or we will all suffer.”
The only looking down the line Pearson is doing right now is in anticipation of possible new gun safety legislation that could take place in the special legislative session scheduled for August, not long after the forthcoming special general election for his seat.
Pearson discusses such matters in terms of the generalized public effort he believes is necessary to accomplish any necessary step forward. He sees himself and the other members of the Tennessee Three as having acted, not in their own right, but in tandem with an emotional response by thousands of protesting fellow Tennesseans to the gun massacre of six people at a Nashville Christian school back in March.
It was the refusal to acknowledge that response by the GOP supermajority and House Speaker Cameron Sexton that prompted the Three to act as they did, Pearson said.
He declared: “There’s a group of folks in Nashville in the supermajority Republican Party, a group of folks that are in positions of power, who are wielding that power against us all, Black folks, white folks — that hits our entire community. And the choice is, are we going to be in solidarity to help solve the problem?”
Calls for collective action of this sort spill seamlessly from Pearson, who clearly is consumed by the idea that a “conscious civic community” can unite to resolve important issues — in addition to the gun matter, such other concerns as high cancer risk in impoverished areas like those in his district, the failure of school children to achieve third-grade levels in reading, and an intolerable homicide rate.
“I know for a fact,” he said, “if you carry that moral imagination, and you put your resources and your pedigree and your privilege next to that, the possibilities that we will have as a community will only grow exponentially …. You realize that love requires you to be proximate to the people who have been most unloved.”
The fight for democracy, he said, “is at the state house, and it’s down the street. It’s in our city halls and in our county, where the fight for what democracy is going to beand whether or not a pluralistic multiracial, multi socioeconomic, just democracy will live.”
He said, “I really do believe in this groundswell of support that we’re seeing with the Tennessee Three, with this fight for our democracy, with the fight for freedom and freedom of expression.”
He really does believe, it is obvious, and it is difficult not to be carried along by the stream of that belief and by the character of his convictions. The Rotarians he addressed Tuesday were manifestly moved, and it remains to be seen whether, and to what extent, the holders of power in state government will be, come the August special session and thereafter.
There is that shibboleth: “No power is so great as that of an idea whose time has come.”
Justin J. Pearson is, to an unusual extent, the embodiment of an idea.
Justin Pearson and County Commission Chair Mickell Lowery. Photo by Jackson Baker.
Justin J. Pearson, the youthful activist who easily won a special election on Tuesday to become the state representative from House District 86, was formally appointed to that office on Wednesday by vote of the Shelby County Commission.
At a brief but spirited ceremony Wednesday afternoon in the Vasco Smith county building’s auditorium, Democrat Pearson, who succeeds the late Barbara Cooper, received the Commission’s unanimous vote and generous plaudits from its members, both Democratic and Republican.
And Commissioner Erika Sugarmon indicated she would put his newly won status to immediate test. “I have some legislation for you,” she said. The premise of Pearson’s getting the Commission’s appointment before his formal certification was to give him the opportunity to meet the General Assembly’s January 31 deadline for the introduction of bills.
In a brief but emotionally resonant response, Pearson, who got almost four times the number of votes as did runner-up Julian Bolton in the 10-person field, indicated he was ready for the challenges ahead.
Characterizing the outcome of the election as a “victory of the people,” Pearson said it was “going to turn into the transformative change that we so desperately need in Memphis and Shelby County and across the state of Tennessee and I’m just happy to be a vessel.”
He moved quickly into an anecdote about a Black trans woman who, he said, had been shadowed and spied on by a Shelby County deputy during her use of the lavatory facilities on a recent visit to the county building.
Referring to the incident as having been “very scary and frightening,” Pearson said, “We need to make sure that this space is safe for everybody,” not just for members of the “dominant culture.” Alluding to Martin Luther King’s dictum that justice denied for a few is justice denied for everyone, Pearson vowed to represent “the people who are so oppressed and marginalized” and called for a “united response” to that purpose.
He said he was pleased for the opportunity to go to Nashville, “but our work is here, right? There’s a lot of people here. And so I’m not going away, [nor} are thousands of supporters, they’re not going away. I’m going to stay engaged and active locally.
“… If we do not deal with what’s happening here, and in systemic and systematic fashion, these things are going to repeat themselves. This is not about Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. It’s about the question of justice.”
Pearson told the Commissioners, “I thank you for your graciousness, your very kind comments and the work that you do.”
Referring to support received from the Commission in his successful 2021 campaign against the construction of an oil pipeline in South Memphis, he said, “You have proven that people power works and that you are true representatives of the people.
“And for us to continue to do that work fairly and to do it in the right fashion … we have to lift up the folks most marginalized in this community and in the state of Tennessee.”
Justin Pearson (Photo: Justin J. Pearson | Facebook)
Justin J. Pearson, the young activist who was essentially unknown until his major involvement in the successful 2021 effort to prevent an oil pipeline in South Memphis, is now a factor in local and state government, having won the special election in state House District 86 with relative ease.
With 716 votes in the District’s 19 precincts, Pearson came relatively close to winning an absolute majority in the 10-candidate field of the Democratic primary.. His closest opponent was the veteran political figure Julian Bolton, with 192 votes. At the age of 27, Pearson succeeds the much-loved longtime incumbent of the seat, Barbara Cooper, whose death last year at the age of 93 created the vacancy in District 86.
The size of Pearson’s plurality means, among other things, that plans by the Shelby County Commission to formally appoint the top vote-getter in a special called meeting on Wednesday can go forward with no doubts as to the validity of its action, there having been no entrant in the Republican primary, a fact making a scheduled special general election unnecessary.
Every year, the Memphis Flyer asks our readers to nominate the city’s best and brightest young leaders. From sports to government to tech, here are the Memphians who will be shaping our future.
Photo: Matthew Hise
Carrie Bernans Actor, stunt performer, film producer
Carrie Bernans had already lived all over the world by the time she came to the Bluff City. “I loved Memphis. It’s a place that I consider home — the longest place I really stayed in my childhood.”
She turned down scholarships at Fordham and Vanderbilt to study international business and theater at the University of Memphis, where she became a track and field star. “I wanted to be a black belt. I speak six languages, and I knew some martial arts, but I needed to learn more. So I got into it and found out that there was a niche market for girls like me.”
Her athleticism made her a natural stunt performer. “It became a very lucrative side job,” she says. “People were hustling tables to make ends meet, and I was just going to sets to do some stunts.”
In 2018, she was cast as a Wakandan warrior in the Dora Milaje in Black Panther, a role she reprised in Avengers: Endgame. “Show business for me was a way of telling stories that were important to tell. I want younger people of color to see themselves on screen in other ways beyond what we were already used to. It wasn’t only rappers and drug dealers, but also astronauts and warriors and many other things.”
Photo: Courtesy Alfonso Canady
Alfonso Canady Lead Software Engineer, Cinilope
It was a middle school Minecraft obsession that introduced Canady to programming. He recalls the first time he was able to make a computer say, “Hello world!” “Even just doing something really simple like that, I was dumbfounded by the power at my fingertips.”
Now, Canady works on more complex problems. At the Memphis tech company Cinilope, he develops new technology for drones and self-driving cars. “You get a lot of titles when you’re in a start-up,” he says.
While he was at Rhodes College, he found another passion: introducing others to programming. “CodeCrew is a nonprofit organization that brings computer science classes and programs to individuals who are historically underrepresented in the field.”
Ultimately, he wants to help make the Bluff City a world-class tech hub. “That would mean people taking the initiative, these young people who are intelligent, who are bright, staying in Memphis. That’s what we’re doing here within Cinilope.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Kevin Carpenter Music educator, Shelby County Schools
“My mom’s family is full of teachers, and my dad’s family is full of varying degrees of musicians. I had two amazing elementary school music teachers when I was a kid, and then had great band directors after them. I grew up with church choir.”
When the trumpet player first stepped in front of a class to teach, he knew he had found his calling. “The most important thing for me is to be a meaningful agent of change. And that means delivering equitable, high-quality music education to every student that needs it.”
When the pandemic hit, he used his skills as a recording engineer by organizing the Memphis Area Virtual Youth Choir. “It was a really beautiful thing to see come together. Then I realized this isn’t just a thing that our kids need here. This is a thing that everybody needs access to everywhere. So I opened up my own virtual performance studio and have put together performances for over a thousand musicians, all around the world.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Irah Gates Mental Health Outreach and Engagement Specialist, CMI Healthcare Services
Irah Gates says attending Rust, a historically Black college, “was very important to me, to learn about myself, my history, about our people and give back to the community.”
Giving back has been a major theme in her life. “That’s just the way my mother raised us,” she says. “I had lost my father at the age of 7, so she struggled to put us through school, my two big sisters and myself. So we built that resilience.”
She has organized volunteers for St. Jude’s Pantry Restock project through her church, New Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal; raised funds for Ronald McDonald House; and spearheaded the Operation Warm Hearts winter clothing drive. She traveled to South Africa, where she tutored and organized after-school programs in the low-income townships near Cape Town.
“My passion is working with children since I went through what I went through at an early age, and I just wanted to give back and let people know — and their students know — that it’s okay to go through adversities in life. You can always turn that into positivity and you can accomplish anything that you put your mind to.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Alex Gordon Project Manager, LEO Events
“We are the only destination management company in Memphis. We work with a lot of outbound or inbound, groups and corporations. … I feel very fortunate to be able to wake up and love what I do every day.”
If you were one of the 20,000 people who ran the St. Jude Marathon, you were greeted in the Edge District by Alex Gordon. Organizing comes naturally for her.
Gordon is also on the Edge District board of directors, and volunteers with Best Buddies International, where she helps throw the Joy Prom, an annual event for high schoolers with special needs. “It’s so awesome,” she says. “You get to walk them down a red carpet, get their photo taken, and then you just go and dance all night! It is just such a great thing because those kids are so happy to be alive.”
Photo: Brandon DIll
Margaret Haltom Director of Emergency Rent Assistance and Housing Policy, The Works Inc.
“Urban planning to me is all about building relationships and working in partnership with communities,” says Haltom. “I wanted to start my planning career working in the city I knew best, my hometown.”
She’s come a long way since her first job at Shelby Farms. “I tended to the giant compost pile of bison manure after school and on the weekends,” she recalls.
Now, she works to save pandemic-strained families from losing their homes in the midst of a nationwide eviction crisis. “Since March of 2021, we’ve paired over 6,000 households facing eviction in Shelby County with free legal representation, and administered over $40 million in rent relief across over 15,000 households. … I want to build a city where all Memphians have access to stable, high-quality, affordable housing, and when crises come, have the support they need to stay in their homes.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Alex Hensley Former Special Assistant to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris
“I’ve had a sense of injustice since I was little and always wanted to make life a bit easier for folks,” Hensley says. Through their work at BRIDGES and the county mayor’s office, they have devoted themselves to the larger good. “What is rewarding about my work is tangibly improving quality of life — even if it’s for a few families. Policy-level work has allowed me to make change on a larger scale and that’s rewarding as a big-picture kind of human.”
Hensley became notorious when Councilman Edmund Ford obnoxiously objected to their email signature identifying their preferred pronouns. “I use both ‘she’ and ‘they’ pronouns because my sense of myself goes beyond being a woman,” they say. “We don’t have to understand how people identify to respect it. Our communities and our world is better when everyone can feel safe to embody themselves authentically.”
Whether it’s affecting change at the governmental level or bringing together artists for the Art Kognito collective, Hensley says, “Organizing is crucial because we can only address the urgent issues of climate change and social and economic injustice by electing and building power among folks who prioritize people over profit.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Emily Jennewine Pediatric nurse practitioner, Lifedoc Health
Keeping Memphis’ children healthy is a big job, but Emily Jennewine is on the case. “Providing care to patients in the school setting not only provides healthcare that students may otherwise not receive, but also allows for early intervention to address identified health concerns. Together with a team of school nurses, we are able to provide close, school-based follow-up and coordinate further care for these patients. Beyond that, through community partnerships, we are able to provide interventions such as nutrition education and access to nutritious foods through a food bank at the schools,” Jennewine says.
“My goal is to build a future for Memphis that is healthier. I believe we need to invest in preventative healthcare for our children and shift the focus to disease prevention. This should include an emphasis on health education and access to health resources. One of the first places we can start to build a healthier Memphis is in our school systems.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Valencia Jennings Human Resources, Baptist Hospitals, COO HomeT3amHoops
“During my undergraduate years, I realized I needed to have a career in business where I can be around people,” says Jennings. “I am very much a people person, and I thrive off human interaction.”
After earning a master’s degree in human resources, she joined Baptist Hospitals two years ago. “HR healthcare professionals must acknowledge that the group of individuals under their stewardship includes not only employees who receive a paycheck, but also patients who are receiving treatment,” she says.
Outside the hospital, she co-founded HomeT3amHoops. “Since high school, I’ve known that I wanted to create a non-profit to afford the youth of my community opportunities that are not usually afforded to them. My best friend and I [Trey Draper, 20<30, Class of 2019] created this vision in 2021. Our focus is to not only impact the lives of youth by helping them gain the fundamental skills through basketball, but also by giving them needed life skills, educational resources, and volunteer opportunities. We want to ensure that the children of our community know that there are opportunities for them in arms reach and we will help get them there.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Marissa Manthongkham Director of Operations and Educational Programming, PRIZM Ensemble
Raised in a music-rich Memphis household, Manthongkham left to pursue her career as a clarinetist, eventually earning a Ph.D. at Michigan State University. “After 11 years of performing and studying in various regions of the country and abroad, I realized I wanted to return home to apply these global perspectives. I am so thrilled to be back in Memphis as a leader in the local musical community.”
With PRIZM Ensemble, she helps provide musical opportunities for a wide range of marginalized groups. “It has been proven that students who study music excel academically above their classmates. These studies show that music is the key to a more well-rounded education. Since I have personally benefited from these advantages, I feel obligated to share my knowledge and experiences with others in an effort to encourage more youth to study instrumental music. As an advocate, I will ensure that I reach as many young children as possible to inspire them to recognize the full benefits of music. As a woman of color, I understand the importance of community and how music functions within the cultural structure.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Andrew Mok Category Manager, AutoZone
The son of Korean immigrants, Andrew Mok knows what it’s like to struggle. Now he is one of the youngest executives at AutoZone. “I’m very fortunate to be in the position that I am today at such a young age, but I wouldn’t be here if it was just me working. I had leaders in the community who really invested in me to help me get to this point.”
Mok gives back to the community with the Technical Center at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Memphis. “I don’t want us to just focus on the big things, like making Downtown better. There are a lot of areas that need our help. That’s the reason why I am drawn to the Boys & Girls Club. I volunteered to take the lead on that project because I know what they’re going through. I’ve seen it firsthand growing up.”
He is also on the board of directors for the University of Memphis Alumni Association, a position that “means everything to me. There’s a lot of characteristics and qualities and traits that I have today that I wouldn’t have had if it wasn’t for the University of Memphis.”
Photo: Ja Morant courtesy of Joe Murphy / NBAE | Getty Images
Ja Morant Point Guard, Memphis Grizzlies
Memphis has seen our share of basketball stars, but no one has ever thrilled our city like Ja Morant. The 2020 NBA Rookie of the Year has led the Memphis Grizzlies to a record 11-game winning streak, putting the team in playoff contention and his name in the conversation for MVP. In the process, he has become the hero to the city.
“Since day one, Memphis made me and my family feel comfortable here and made us feel like home. I love everything about it, from the front office down, the fans, the community. Me and my family couldn’t ask for anything better, I want [Memphis] to receive more recognition. I feel like we have something good going here and just got to continue to grow.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Jonathan Mosley Program Director, Memphis in May International Festival; actor
As an event manager, Mosley has been responsible for Diner En Blanc, the Downtown Riverfront Market, and the Covid-era “Santa in a Bubble.” “Luckily in Memphis, it’s not too hard to have a good time! You can throw a rock and hit singer or DJ, the community will always come through, and our city has some of the best scenic backdrops for any event-type venue. Mix in a good cause and you’re bound to have a good event for good people looking for a good time.”
Mosley’s passion is acting. In 2018, he got the role of a lifetime at Hattiloo Theatre. “Playing the role of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an extreme honor, privilege, and challenge. This was my first lead role in the city that MLK died in, and the show was running during the 50th anniversary of his assassination. The pressure was on, to say the least, but with the help of Hattiloo, I was ready. One of the most rewarding moments from that run of shows was being able to perform in front of seniors who had actually seen and heard Dr. King in person. Their compliments, stories, and comparisons are words that I will cherish forever.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Cori McCleskey She-E-O, Remember Media
“I wasn’t a leader growing up,” McCleskey says. “I was really, really shy. I couldn’t even go through a drive-through or order a pizza over the phone. It was that type of social anxiety. I did not like that about myself.”
The Marion, Arkansas, native sought to overcome her fears by facing them head-on. Her first exposure to social media was as an art gallery coordinator for the University of Arkansas. “At one point in college, I was running a little agency. I had eight accounts, and that led to me doing social media for the Arkansas Razorbacks for two football seasons.”
McCleskey was working a corporate job when the pandemic forced her to re-evaluate her path. “I knew it was time for me to jump off that entrepreneurial ledge. Around that time, all my friends were asking me to manage their social media accounts for their small businesses. So I was like, ’Why do I keep refusing?’”
Her company Remember Media now counts many Downtown businesses among its clients. “Even through the highs and lows of running a business over the last 18 months, I’ve always believed in myself and believed in my team. We can overcome anything together.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Nora Murray Director of Community Impact, New Memphis Institute
When Murray moved to Memphis in 2018, she says she had a lot of trepidation about a place where she knew no one, and which gets a lot of bad press. “Memphis and Memphians quickly wrapped their arms, souls, and hearts around us, and we love sharing that experience to continue working to change the narrative about Memphis.”
Now, greeting newcomers is one of her duties at the New Memphis Institute. “Having been a newcomer myself, I love to ensure that each person I meet becomes connected to Memphis and feels a sense of community here.”
Last year, she took over as the organizer of TEDx Memphis. “Bringing TEDx Memphis to a new, outdoor location certainly had its challenges, but it was so rewarding to see the tradition continue and to amplify the Memphis voice on a grander stage. We have so many incredible people in this city doing really innovative work,” she says.
“What makes our city unique is that when Memphians have an idea, they can quickly garner a community to support that idea and put it into action.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Louise Page Musician
Louise Page didn’t expect to stay in Memphis after graduating from Rhodes College. “But I’ve just never wanted to move. I love it here. I’ve established myself in a really good community of artists and musicians.”
The English major worked as a librarian for two years before quitting to pursue music full-time. “I started playing the original songs I’d been writing since high school, but never performing, right after I graduated. That was organically picking up steam, and I felt like I could make it my real job.”
Since then, she has released three independently produced albums, most recently Play Nice, a collection of solo piano and vocal songs she wrote during the pandemic. “All of my songs are really personal,” she says. “I don’t necessarily write what I think will be popular. I write what I need to write.”
Before the pandemic sidelined her gigging and touring, she devoted time to organizing benefit shows for organizations like Mariposas Collective. “My parents instilled these values in me,” she says. “If you have more than you need, you should share. You should help your community. You should do good things for people just because they’re good, not because you want something in return.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Justin J. Pearson Founder, Memphis Community Against Pollution
“I’m an unlikely leader of the environmental justice movement,” says Pearson. “I didn’t truly understand those words until our fight with the Byhalia Connection Pipeline.”
Memphis Community Against the Pipeline fought the construction of a new oil pipeline that would have bisected the predominantly Black, Southeast Memphis community where he grew up. “What I believed, and what I think our team and neighborhood association believed was, ‘We may not win, but they don’t expect a fight. So they’re not prepared for us; whereas, we mentally can be prepared for them.’”
But after a bruising few months of protests and City Council meetings, win they did. Now, Pearson has pivoted the organization he founded to fighting for environmental justice for all Memphians. “I want to build a Memphis where we can live in peace,” he says. “People deserve to not live in fear that the air we’re breathing is going to kill them.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Lyndsey Pender Research and Evaluation Specialist, The Works Inc.
“I’ve always been really interested in people — making authentic connections and genuine interactions with people,” says Pender.
The Memphis native decided to switch course from photojournalism to anthropology while in college, and returned from Kentucky to her hometown. “I was lucky because the anthropology program at the University of Memphis is nationally ranked, a great program.”
Now, with The Works, Inc., her mission is to make life better for all the people of Memphis. “We are a Community Development Corporation, a 501c( 3), and our focus has historically been on housing,” she says. “But we really take a holistic approach. For the health and wealth and safety of a family, you have to have a stable home environment, but we understand that you can’t address housing without addressing some other problems at the same time. … I do work across all of our programs. My background is medical anthropology.
“I think Memphis is unique, in that we are a predominantly Black city. But like a lot of Black Americans, our Black citizens don’t have the same job opportunities and educational opportunities. I want a city where everyone can flourish, regardless of the ZIP code that they were born into.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Shelby Smith Director of Communications, Choose901
“I was always talking about moving away,” says Smith, who grew up in the eastern portions of Shelby County. It was a college internship at Choose901 that changed her mind. “I wasn’t really coming to the city very often, because the media was only telling me about the bad things. I wasn’t hearing about the good things.”
Now, it’s her job to tell people about the great things her city has to offer. “I’ve been here my whole life, and I’d rather put on my gloves and fight than see someone from a different city think they know what’s happening here and try and fight that battle on their own,” she says.
Smith “grew up as a dancer” and taught for Collage Dance Collective before the pandemic. “Dancing is my happy place. If I’m on stage, it doesn’t matter if I’m wearing shoes or if I’m barefoot, if I’m in my Nike Dunks or my heels, that form of expression is a release for me.”
Smith is set to continue spreading the good news about the Bluff City with an upcoming partnership with Unapologetic. “I want to continue to build a Memphis that’s proud of itself.”
Photo: Brandon Dill
Brennan Steele Author & Director of Advancement, Believe Memphis Academy
Brennan Steele says he was drawn to teaching by the many small acts of kindness he received from teachers. “I was taught to whom much is given, much is required,” he says. “Over the course of my educational journey, I was afforded a lot of educational wealth by people, specifically teachers and counselors, who were looking out for me. … What really pushed me over the edge was when I had my first and only Black male teacher in the 11th grade.”
Having an AP English teacher who looked like him made Steele believe anything was possible, which “made me want to have that impact on all students.” Soon after he came to Memphis to teach, he had the idea for Breathe: A Guided Healing Journey for Black Men, a journal with 45 days of writing prompts designed to facilitate self-discovery. “I think there are so many times where Black people are reduced to a hashtag, especially after people have been murdered,” he says. “This is like the active reclaiming of your story.”
