Tag: MLK50

Categories
Fly On The Wall Blog Opinion

MLK50 Tapped to Join ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network

Wendi Thomas

A rare bit of good news for Memphis-area media consumers, especially those with a taste for investigative work.

ProPublica, the Pulitzer-winning digital newsroom focused on investigative journalism in the public interest, has selected Wendi Thomas and her MLK50 Justice Through Journalism project, to participate in year two of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. Thomas describes the announcement as a, “vote of confidence in the importance of this work.”

ProPublica’s Local News Network supports regional and local investigative journalism and MLK50 is one of 14 selected organizations.

From the ProPublica announcement:


“Through the program, participating reporters collaborate with ProPublica senior editors Charles Ornstein and Marilyn W. Thompson as they embark on investigative journalism within their communities. Two of the projects, based in Illinois, also will work with the staff of ProPublica Illinois. ProPublica reimburses one year’s salary and benefits for each of the participating reporters and also supports projects with its expertise in data, research and engagement elements of the work… Topics will include racial segregation, correctional facilities, emergency response, environmental regulation, profiteering and higher education.” 

MLK50 is taking part in the general, local reporting category.

“While the past year has seen yet more cutbacks at local news organizations, the ProPublica Local Reporting Network has been a bright spot nationally,”  Ornstein said, in a written statement. “We couldn’t be happier with the accountability journalism produced by our inaugural class and are excited to pursue another year of investigative projects with moral force.”

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom and nearly 11 years old. It has been honored with four Pulitzer Prizes, three Peabody Awards, two Emmy Awards, and five George Polk Awards.

For more details about the partnership you can read MLK50’s announcement here. 

Categories
Music Music Blog

“Music for Martin” Concert Premieres Cutting-edge Works

Of all the musical moments associated with the city’s MLK50 remembrances — and there were many memorable ones — it may turn out that tonight’s will be the most meaningful in terms of the values promoted by Dr. King himself. King, having remained devoted to the cause of America’s poor to the end, would surely have been proud of tonight’s concert at the Cannon Center, benefiting the Memphis Food Bank.

“Music for Martin” will be a massive collaborative effort, featuring students of the University of Memphis Rudi E. Scheidt School of Music (the 901 Big Band, Chamber Choir, and Chamber Strings), the Ballet on Wheels Dance School, and the Boys and Girls Choir of Memphis. The combined forces of these ensembles will make for a grand sonic spectacle in the brilliant acoustics of the concert hall.

The Boys & Girls Choir of Memphis

Their collective talents will bring some local works to life, starting with music from The Promise, an opera based on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., by Memphis composer John Baur. The night will also feature the world premiere of Echoes of a King, A Hip Hop Symphony.

Composed collaboratively, Echoes combines hip-hop, gospel, soul and R&B with classical orchestration performed by a 50-piece ensemble consisting of a big band, string section, MC’s and vocalists. “This may be the first hip hop symphony of its kind,” says Ben Yonas, assistant professor of music business at the University of Memphis. “Imagine the many riffs and rhythms associated with hip hop, but created with live orchestral instruments. This will be a fantastic premiere.” Describing the infectious enthusiasm of the student co-composers, Yonas, a musician himself, says “their talent and commitment is truly astounding.”

“Music for Martin,” presented by Mayor Jim Strickland and the Memphis Youth City Council, will donate all proceeds from tonight’s show to the Memphis Food Bank. Bring three canned goods or a jar of peanut butter in lieu of admission. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., program starts at 6:30 p.m.

Categories
Cover Feature News

Wealth, Poverty, and Race in Memphis — Myths and Misconceptions.

Introducing the Justice Project:

Injustice is a problem in Memphis — in its housing, its wealth-gap, its food deserts, its justice system, its education system. In 2018, the Flyer is going to take a hard look at these issues in a series of cover stories we’re calling The Justice Project. The stories will focus on reviewing injustice in its many forms here and exploring what, if anything, is being done — or can be done — to remedy the problems. 

Nathaniel Crawford has a lot going on. The 17-year-old senior at the Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering is a South Memphis native who grew up in the Glenview neighborhood before moving to East Memphis, where he lives with his mom and younger sister. Crawford’s a competitive athlete who boxes and runs track. He recently enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve and is getting accustomed to the idea that he’s leaving for Murfreesboro this fall to enroll as a freshman at Middle Tennessee State University.

In addition to all of this, Crawford runs an event-planning business called Party Hardy, and with the help of a group called LITE Memphis, he’s looking to grow his brand and meet potential clients and investors. “I’m playing chess, not checkers,” he says, and you only have to hear a little of his spiel about combating negativity with entertainment to know he means it.

In some ways LITE — an acronym for Let’s Innovate Through Education — is similar to other business accelerators and incubator programs that exist primarily to advise and guide startups. One thing that sets the four-year-old organization apart is that it was born in a Teach for America classroom and nurtured in an environment sensitive to the invisible barriers excluding communities of color.

LITE’s clearly stated, highly ambitious vision is to help “African-American and Latinx students close the racial wealth gap [in Memphis] by becoming entrepreneurs and securing high-wage jobs.”

Working under the principle that business needs talent and talent needs access, the organization identifies and addresses historic obstacles to inclusive urban growth during the course of eight-year fellowships. The long-range goal of a process that includes high-level internship opportunities and project microfunding is to see 25 percent of the students start businesses employing two or more people, and for the remaining 75 percent to attain high-paying jobs.

On Thursday, May 3rd, 34 students, including Crawford, get to show off what they’ve learned about selling their brightest ideas when LITE hosts its annual Pitch Night at Clayborn Temple.

Crawford’s Party Hardy brand will compete against other students’ businesses plans, including a moisturizer company, an app that connects people to an appropriate church, a multimedia marketing group scaled to accommodate small businesses, and several others. The winning company picks up a $2,500 prize to invest in the business.

Crawford says he’s more interested in the opportunity to get his ideas in front of people.

“Winning isn’t the best thing that could happen on Pitch Night,” he says. “The best that could happen is I could meet an investor.”

Freeze this picture of hope and hold it in your mind for a minute. It’s inspiring news — a genuinely uplifting story about a bunch of great kids and a forward-thinking program where 100 percent of the participants go to college. That last detail is important, because people who obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher typically earn 78 percent more than non-graduates.

Additionally, should Crawford continue to pursue an entrepreneurial path, the good news is that African-American business owners tend to have a net worth 12 times greater than non-business-owners.

But the truth is, it’s going to take lots of programs creating lots of Nathaniel Crawfords and even more systemic change to close the wealth gap in the United States. Black households in the U.S. possess only one-tenth the median net worth of white households, and have almost zero liquidity.

Education and entrepreneurship are frequently identified as the surest ways to eliminate racial-wealth inequality, but the latest poverty report authored by University of Memphis associate professor of sociology Elena Delavega paints a complicated and troubling picture that challenges conventional wisdom.

“People talk about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, but there are no boots,” Delavega says. “So I think, as a society, what we need to do is to create boots. We need to create the basis for the opportunity to exist.”

Memphis has the highest rate of child poverty in America, and it’s only getting worse. Currently, 48.3 percent of all African-American children in Memphis live with scarcity and, according to Delavega, there’s a fairly straightforward reason for that unfortunate statistic. “The children are poor because they have poor mothers,” she explained at an MLK50-affiliated Poverty Forum, where the National Civil Rights Museum rolled out “Memphis Since MLK,” a comparative 50-year poverty survey.

“This is not about marriage either,” she continued, dismissing popular narratives rooting social ills in the dissolution of nuclear families. “Poverty among married people has increased three times as fast as poverty for single mothers.” Delavega then made a request of the panel and audience: She asked everyone to hold an image in their minds: “If you see a [black] child in the street, you can flip a coin,” she said, illustrating the percentage — the yes-or-no nature — of economic security in Memphis. It was a dramatic moment in the presentation, but hardly the most alarming statistic in her report.

There is some good news: African-American poverty in Memphis has decreased from its peak in 1960. The bad news? The rate’s still 2.5 times greater than that of white Memphians. And, from decade to decade, earnings for African-Americans have consistently remained about half that of whites. Today, the median household income for non-hispanic whites in Memphis is $71,158, or about 11.2 percent higher than the national median. For black households it’s $35,632. Wealth, of course, is about what’s handed down, not what’s earned, but these kinds of income gaps also create credit gaps. Similar disparities are evident in black home-ownership and the average net-worth of black-owned businesses.

Compounding all the bad news in Memphis’ 50-year poverty survey was a single wicked fact that contradicts a deeply held article of faith about poverty and education. The 50-year income gap remained consistent, in spite of improved high school graduation rates among African Americans, and despite the fact that, proportionally, a higher percentage of African Americans are obtaining college degrees.

“We are told all the time: Go to school, get your degree, and your income is going to follow,” Delavega noted. “How can we look kids in the eye and say, ‘Make an effort, do what you’re supposed to do, and it will be fine,’ — when it’s just not true.”

News that gains in education for African Americans did nothing to narrow the income gap pairs distressingly with another number that Memphis journalist and MLK50 founder Wendi Thomas mined from the 2015 federal survey: Blacks comprise 51 percent of Memphis’ workforce. Whites make up 88 percent of Memphis’ executive and senior management personnel.

Coincidently, a 2016 study found that 88 percent of Shelby County contracts are awarded to white-owned firms.

On the night Delavega unveiled her 50-year report, poverty forum panelist Bradley Watkins, Executive Director of Mid-South Peace and Justice, turned his attention to Crosstown, where he described conventional wisdom regarding the enormous redevelopment project, as “the personification” of the poverty study’s findings. In doing so, Watkins described how conflicting public policy dynamics help keep the economic mobility gap in place.

“We have a city that’s said yes to any expense for Crosstown for years now, but in the same breath it has cut the [MATA] 31 Crosstown bus that connects north and south Memphis to that redevelopment,” Watkins said. “There is no implication here; that’s design. We are constantly being asked to embrace a fairytale of false positivity.”

The stories we tell ourselves about poverty and success matter. It’s difficult to change public priorities when so much of the public believes that the majority of poor people live in subsidized housing (false), receive welfare checks (false), and food stamps (false), and that poverty itself is the earned, punitive result of bad decision-making. It’s harder still when economic mobility isn’t factored into projected images of what successful cities should like.   

Talia Owens, LITE fellow and sophomore at DePaul University

Travel writers love Nashville. Glowing writeups about everything from live music to locally produced liquor go viral on the regular, and in the past year, reporters have described Tennessee’s capital as one of the country’s “hottest cities” and a “city on the rise.”

The less frequently repeated story is how the same things that made Music City, U.S.A. such a great place to live — the soaring property values, cool celebrities, hot chicken, and endless media hype — have the combined effect of making Davidson County one of the hardest places in America for poor people to become middle-class.

The Brookings Institute’s Metro Policy Program released a paper last fall showing how 26 of Nashville’s top 50 occupations — 40 percent of all jobs regionally — didn’t pay employees enough to afford fair-market rent. “The number of workers spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent could fill five Nissan stadiums,” the report stated. For people struggling to survive in Nashville’s metro, living in an exciting and innovative “it” city means fair housing, transportation, employment, and high-performing schools are often beyond reach.

According to The New York Times‘ “Best and Worst Places to Grow Up,” an interactive map built around economic mobility indicators, only 12 percent of America’s metros are worse than Nashville. Memphis is part of that 12 percent. Only 9 percent of America’s metros underperform Shelby County, where the number of people paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing would fill 10 FedExForums — with a long line still waiting to get in.

In 2010, in the wake of the housing market crash, The New York Times published an article titled “Blacks in Memphis Lose Decades of Gains.” At about the same time, five million more Americans moved out of secure living situations and into neighborhoods of concentrated poverty.

“Housing that is inexpensive attracts the people with the fewest resources,” Delavega says, offering a primer on how we create disconnected communities. The story she tells has a familiar ring: High housing costs near employment centers and good schools drive people earning lower incomes to shelter-shop in depressed areas further from good jobs and better schools. Her story mirrors the the Brookings study, “Committing to Inclusive Growth,” which shows how economic mobility is most heavily suppressed in segregated communities with poor transit.

“I go back to public transportation in Memphis again and again and again, because it’s fundamental,” Delavega says, placing physical mobility near the top of a wishlist that includes: higher wages, fairly distributed housing, low-cost microcredit for minority and women’s businesses, and better access to schools and childcare for poor mothers.

“Every child who has the parents with financial resources to move to a wealthier area will do so,” Delavega says, elaborating on how the cycle works. “And every child whose parents have the time, education, or motivation to apply for a charter school or an optional school or a private school will do so, too. So who remains? The children with the greatest needs and the fewest resources — and they are now completely abandoned. So now we have this concentration of high-need [families and children] and then we say this school is failing.”

Optional programs may allow motivated families to move their children into a more favorable educational environment, but the easiest way to get your kids into a high-performing school is still to obtain property in a district where housing costs, on average, 2.4-times more than housing in lower performing school districts. As one Memphis realtor put it: “Rents in the Houston or White Station districts are going to be much higher on average than those near Melrose.”

There’s more to enrolling in a school of choice than just filling out the paperwork. And each additional step is a filter that is magnified in disconnected communities, where food insecurities pile on top of housing insecurities, and cash-strapped people are sometimes forced to choose between paying the rent, the utility bill, the car note, or catching up somewhere else.

The smallest barriers can have an enormous impact on decision-making. And nowhere is this truth more evident than the story of how Memphis became America’s bankruptcy capital and a process built to foster forgiveness and renewal became an efficiently maintained system for keeping people in debt.

In September 2017, Pro Publica, a nonprofit online news resource, published a detailed report showing how debt-strapped African Americans in Memphis were more likely to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy than Chapter 7, even though the former is more expensive and the latter frees the filer from debt. According to ProPublica, the crucial difference is that attorneys charge $1,000 up front to file Chapter 7. Chapter 13 filings may require multi-year debt repayment plans and can cost three times as much in fees spread out over time, but a “no money up front” filing option makes it more attractive.

Most filers failed to meet repayment schedules in the first year. Many become serial filers.

ProPublica’s report also noted MLGW’s unusually high number of annual utility cutoffs (about one cutoff per four users) and listed a utility debt of about $1,100 as a common driver of bankruptcy filings. It also quoted West Tennessee Judge Jennie Latta: “The way we have it set up, our culture has a lot of unintended consequences.”

“In every conversation about wealth, income disparity, and justice, we need to talk about wages,” Delavega insists, pointing to an Economic Policy Institute finding that a family of four in Memphis requires a minimum of $37,000 annually to get by — about 1 percent more than the current median income for African-American families. “If someone were to work for $18 an hour without taking any time off, 40 hours a week for 52 weeks, that comes to a little over $37,000,” she says. “So when the city approves PILOT programs on the premise that they’ll bring us jobs that pay $12-an-hour, we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do.” As the Brookings report says: No real progress can be made “if you create access to poor paying jobs or create middle wage jobs excluded communities can’t access.”

Now freeze this image in your mind and let’s return to a happier story. Talia Owens makes her desire to create a positive change part of her pitch to potential investors. The LITE fellow and sophomore at DePaul University wants people to know she’s from Memphis, a majority African-American city where a disproportionately small percentage of all revenue comes from businesses owned by people of color. “My dream is to change all that,” she says, introducing her plan to “disrupt the fashion industry” with Laude, a company that makes designer handbags accessible to people on a budget. Owens, who describes herself as a cheerleader who loves computer coding, came up with the idea when her roommate blew all of her rent money on an expensive purse. After developing the plan with LITE, she’s preparing for a soft launch of the new venture this week.   

“I didn’t want to be just a person who worked a job,” Owens says. “I wanted to create jobs.”

It’s going to take change to solve Memphis’ wealth gap problems. Entrepreneurship programs and affordable handbags won’t get the job done, alone. But, like Crawford, Owens inspires. And, difficult as the circumstances are, a little inspiration can’t possibly hurt.

Categories
Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

“1,300 Men: Memphis Strike ’68” To Screen At Main Library

CREDIT: Darius B. Williams for Striking Voices

Reporting the story of the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike is a lifelong obsession for journalist-turned-director Emily Yellin. Her parents David and Carol Lynn Yellin were founding members of a group dedicated to reconciliation and commemoration in the wake of the April 4, 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. Yellin was six years old at the time. “The first meeting of the Memphis Search for Meaning Committee was in our house on Park Avenue across from Audubon park. I begged my mom to go to the meeting, but she said no. I guess I was persistent enough, so finally she said I could come, but I couldn’t speak, only listen. I could be the secretary, and told me to take notes. At the end of the meeting, she asked to see my notes. The notes read ‘We had a meeting’…I consider that my first reporting work. I reported the facts, and I learned a very important journalism lesson: Listen more than you talk.”
Darius B. Williams for Striking Voices

J. L. McClain, a Memphis Sanitation worker who was among the 1968 strikers, is featured in ‘1,300 Men’.

In the 1990s, Yellin was reporting for the New York Times on assassin James Earl Ray’s quest for a new trial. “The big reporter who came to town [from New York] took me out to dinner before we started working on that case. I said to him, ‘Yeah, I’ve been reporting on this since 1968.’”

David Yellin founded the Film and TV department at the University of Memphis. “He had the foresight to go to the TV stations and ask for the film they shot during the sanitation strike. There’s 25 hours of film—it wasn’t video, it was film, much of which they would have thrown away—of the strike and the aftermath.”

Now, 50 years later, Yellin has used that rare footage and combined it with contemporary interviews of 30 surviving strikers and their families for Striking Voices, a multimedia project that tells the stories of the forgotten foot soldiers of the strike that changed Memphis and America. “We’ve gotten our funding from locals who believe in this project,” says Yellin, who organized the nonprofit project with the help of Community LIFT.

The premiere of Yellin’s web series “1,300 Men: Memphis Strike ’68” on TheRoot.com coincided with the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the walkout on February 12th. The 10 episodes trace the story of the strike from the point of view of the men on the streets and the women and children who supported them. “One of our overriding goals was to give a human dimension to these men who, if you knew about them at all, you only knew them as men walking down Main Street carrying I AM A MAN signs. There are whole stories there, and I think it will be very important for everybody to take time to know these people’s stories. It’s a lot deeper than you might have thought.”
Darius B. Williams for Striking Voices

Striker Baxter Leach

Yellin’s crew were all Memphians, including editors Laura Jean Hocking, Kevin Brooks, and Suzannah Herbert; producers May Todd, Kierra Turner, Asia Sims, director of photography Richard L. Copley, and photographers Stephen Hildreth and Darius B. Williams. “My instincts told me that, as a white woman who grew up in East Memphis, that I was not necessarily the best person to do this project,” says Yellin. “At every step of the way, I had to consider that and be sure I wasn’t imposing my world view on somebody else’s story.”

This Sunday, April 22nd, “1,300 Men” will screen at the Benjamin L. Hooks Library. “We’re really looking forward to Sunday, because that’s our chance to show what we’ve produced for a national audience to a local audience. We’re gong to binge watch the story that we created for The Root for a local audience, and we’re going to have some of the sanitation workers and their wives there for a talk,” says Yellin.

In addition to the “1,300 Men” screening, an photography exhibit called “Striking Voices: The Portraits and Interviews” will be on display at the library adjacent to the screening room. “We interviewed more than 30 people, the men, their wives, and their children. Everyone we interviewed, Darius B. Williams took portrait photographs,” says Yellin.
Putting this long-gestating project together brought home the immediacy of the Civil Rights era, and the work that continues to be needed in Memphis. “There’s a legacy of [white supremacy] that we’re living with here more than almost any other city in the country,” says Yellin. “We think of the the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow as being something that happened to another generation. But what I really see is that it’s still happening in our generation right now.”

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

The Unmatched Courage of Dr. Martin Luther King

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Not long after he had been freed from prison, the former deputy sheriff met me at the motel where I was staying. His name was Cecil Ray Price, and he had been convicted of sending three civil rights workers to their deaths. Their names — never to be forgotten — were Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, and James Chaney. This was Philadelphia, Mississippi, 11 years after the 1964 murders, and I recall it now because of what Price said about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Price had come face to face with greatness.

Michael Donahue

Carolyn Hill at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 50th anniversary

“That Dr. King,” he said. “He had something. There was something about that man.” Price sat heavy on the bed. He had found a job working on a fuel-delivery truck, and he was grateful for that. He was appalled at what he had done and glad things had changed even though it was tough for his son, who was being hassled by some black kids in school. But the school was no longer segregated, and that was good, and the town was no longer so damp with hate, and that was good, too.

Looking back now, he could not believe how hard they had hated and how bitterly they had fought for a system that swiftly collapsed and nobody missed. Good riddance, Jim Crow. And then he mentioned King. He had met King when King had come to town to protest the murders and put up bail for an associate. King stood on the steps of the county courthouse and said, “The murderers of Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner are no doubt within range of my voice.”

From behind him, King heard Price mutter, “You’re damn right, we’re right here behind you.”

Price had not pulled the trigger on the three, but he had arrested them, jailed them, and then handed them over to the Ku Klux Klan to be shot. He got six years for violating their civil rights.

I met King only once, but indulge me if I think I grasped the greatness Price saw: It was immense courage. Price had not read King’s speeches or fathomed the profoundness of nonviolence, but he was a man and he stood, like most men do, in awe of men who have conquered fear. That does not mean that King was never afraid. The vehemence of the hate he encountered in 1966 in Chicago deeply shook him. The crowds were big-city big, thick with Carl Sandburg’s onetime hog butchers, young men who mistook their white skin for achievement. King was shaken, “unprepared for the villainy he saw in the world,” as his friend Harry Belafonte says in the current HBO documentary King in the Wilderness.

King died in that wilderness. King’s last years were painful, lonely with worry for his life and for his reputation. As I watched this remarkable documentary, I scrutinized King’s face for even a hint of fear. I saw nothing. King thought J. Edgar Hoover was attempting to drive him to suicide by leaking details of his sex life. He knew he was on the target end of countless scopes mounted on countless rifles. He was a dead man walking, but he walked anyway, each day donning a bull’s eye. On the last night of his life, he rose from a sickbed to extemporaneously make a stirring speech that foreshadowed his death. “And I’ve seen the Promised Land,” he said. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

He was killed the next day.

Winston Churchill called courage “the quality which guarantees all others.” In King’s case, it guaranteed his adherence to nonviolence. It was a difficult, often enraging choice, but it presented white America with a moral challenge. Come be as good as I am, King seemed to be saying.

Morality begat morality. King was never going to be the equal of his opponents. He was always their better. Cecil Ray Price brought up Martin Luther King on his own. I did not ask about him. It seemed he wanted to tell someone that he had encountered a great man. Price had blood on his hands and hate in his heart when he met King, but he knew instantly that he had met his better. He saw then what we all see now. It has been 50 years, but the vision grows sharper, and King grows greater.

Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post Writers Group.

Categories
Music Music Blog

The Kids Who Sing a Righteous Song: Haunting Harmonies Guide the March for Our Lives

CREDIT: Iseashia Thomas

Iseashia Thomas

The kids of the Perfecting Gifts choir, at the March for Our Lives

As I approached the #MarchForOurLives gathering point at the Clayborn Temple this morning, walking across Robert R. Church Park, a choir’s song wafted through the air, growing stronger as I drew near. The call to move had been made, and marchers were just beginning to walk up Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, but the singers’ power kept building. “We are one…we are one,” they sang. Many marchers paused and turned back, riveted, looking to the temple’s front steps, where a couple dozen kids sang. Now the soloists were stepping out, testifying in song with tremendous soul.

The music seemed to be wind beneath the wings of the march, carrying over two blocks’ worth of humanity to the National Civil Rights Museum. Although official estimates of the crowd size are not yet available, this was a well-attended march of many hundreds who were calling out for stricter gun control laws. As people chanted “enough is enough,” signs floated above the crowd, cutting to the heart of the issue: “NRA Gives Blood Money for Political Bull Shit,” “Moms Demand Action,” “Melt the Guns,” and a giant handgun twisted into a knot. “This is what democracy looks like,” they chanted.

I lingered at Clayborn Temple a while as the people and the signs flowed toward South Main, and found the kids in the choir reassembling inside. They were about to reprise their performance for a video taping. As they milled around, I spoke a bit with the choir director, Sharonda Mitchell, who co-wrote “We Are One” with Ranata Hickson.

Memphis Flyer: So how did this choir come together to sing for the march today?

Sharonda Mitchell: The kids are with Perfecting Gifts, Incorporated. We are a 501(c)3 organization with a mission to nurture, mature and celebrate young artists. So we decided to put an original song together and let the kids go into Hope Presbyterian Church, the Grove recording studio, and record the song. That was last Saturday, and we’re here today to do a video with the song. Then we plan to release it on the anniversary of Dr. King’s death.

That’s great. So it applies to both today’s march and Dr. King’s vision.

Absolutely. The lyrics are so simple, “We are one, together we stand, hand in hand, we are one.”

Did these kids just come together for this event?

This event was put together as a part of our six weeks performing art intensive. So all of the students came together for six weeks. They learned the basics of performance, which means vocal performance, theater — they learned all the basics. And now this is the culmination activity that ends the six weeks intensive. We have a program every season. This is our winter program and it will be kicking off again for the summer, which will be six weeks as well. And then we’ll come back for the fall and do six weeks. This particular six weeks intensive is with kids aged from 9 to 17. But for summer we go all the way down to six years old. And we divide them into age appropriate groups. And it’s all for the empowerment of our youth. Especially those who love music, love theater, love to sing. This is the perfect program for them.

Are kids recruited from all the school systems?

Absolutely. I have representation with this particular group from fifteen of our city schools. Maybe three charter schools. All of them are good honor roll students; and those who aren’t honor roll students are striving to be. And it’s the music that’s enabling them to come out of their shell and do better with that. Believe it or not, most of these students have never performed in a choir. So this is the beginning of what will expand into youth unity in music.

Is it always a capella?

We have a mixture of everything. Today we have Steven Simmons, who’s from Visible Music College. He and his team mate will be opening up with a song. We’re trying to do more partnering with Visible, since they are right in the neighborhood here. And he as a musician invests so much into the kids. So we’re trying to get a collaboration really soon. We also have Gary Walker, who is just an amazing musician. He’s the one who developed the original track for the song “We Are One”.

So the studio version has a backing track.

Yes, it was created by Gary Walker and it was presented by Steven Simmons and they were recorded by Marque Walker. Our video company is Forever Ready. They are amazing. Lauren and Julie have been just what we needed. They love the kids and it shows even in their recording. So it’s just a big collaboration.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

MLK Challenge Issued

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Appropriately, the first week of organized appreciation of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — centered on Monday’s national holiday in his honor and the weekend preceding — focused less on the usual veneration attached to his name and rather more on the continuing challenge to change and human progress that his life represented.

That note was struck during last week’s reconvening of the Tennessee General Assembly, when District 96 state Representative Dwayne Thompson formally asked legislative leaders to suspend business on April 4th and 5th so lawmakers could attend events in Memphis commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Dr. King.

In a letter sent to Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally and House Speaker Beth Harwell, Thompson said, “Dr. King’s death and the events leading up to it had a profound impact on the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee, and the entire nation” and that state leaders should have the opportunity of attend the Memphis ceremonies.  

Thompson went on to say, “Suspending the business of the Tennessee General Assembly should be a rare occasion, but I feel this commemoration is justified as one of those times.” Thompson said he was also working on legislation to encourage Tennesseans to observe this solemn occasion by recalling the legacy of Dr. King and heeding his call for unity, love, and compassion.

That was followed up with a press conference held at noon Monday in front of the Civil Rights Museum by members of the Shelby County Black Caucus of Elected Officials to denounce the reported remarks of President Donald Trump referring to Haiti, El Salvador, and several African nations as “shithole countries.”

Speaking for the Caucus, state Representative Antonio Parkinson and Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner issued a statement calling Trump’s remarks “embarrassing, classless, racist, and not representative of the values of the citizens that are represented by the members of the Shelby County Black Caucus of Elected Officials.”

• Even as various local Republicans hanker after the state Senate seat of current Senate majority leader Mark Norris, doubts are beginning to arise as to whether the seat, presumably due to be vacated when Norris becomes a federal judge, will actually come open.

Although Norris’ judicial nomination, made last year by President Trump, has been approved on an 11-9 party-line vote by the Senate Judiciary Committee, Norris was not included in a confirmation vote by the full Senate this week that saw two other Trump nominees approved — Memphis lawyer Tommy Parker, a former assistant U.S. district attorney, for a seat on the U.S. District Court for West Tennessee and Nashville lawyer William “Chip” Campbell for a U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee position.

So Norris was back at the same old legislative stand this week as the General Assembly convened in Nashville, still functioning as majority leader, in which partisan role he told his fellow GOP Senators they should be “putting [their] best foot forward and telling people all the good things we’ve done.”

As for his judicial future, Norris dropped hints that he could fail at confirmation, a prospect due to his record of having espoused in Nashville hot-button positions on issues like immigration, photo ID requirements for voting, and a series of measures relating to LGBTQ rights.

Norris, who told his fellow Senators, “Y’all may be stuck with me for a while,” was quoted by the Tennessee Journal as saying he had felt “crucified for the sins of others during his Judiciary Committee hearing” and that he had doubts he could command the full component of 51 Republican votes in a final showdown vote on his confirmation.

In any case, Trump formally renominated Norris this week, a parliamentary action required because the Senate had recessed last year without voting on him.

But the senator may not have enjoyed the fact that Trump, speaking in Nashville this week to the Tennessee Farm Federation, garbled his name by referring to him from the stump as “Mark Morris, state Senate majority leader.”

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Big Show! Big Tent!

In 1998, Kelly Chandler, a University of Memphis film student, got some of her fellow budding filmmakers together at a coffee shop in Midtown. Frustrated that there was no place to show their work, they decided to take matters into their own hands. The ad hoc film society attracted the attention of James Patterson’s arts philanthropy, Delta Axis, which took over running what would soon come to be called the Indie Memphis Film Festival.

Twenty years later, it’s a big birthday for Indie Memphis.

The first year, about 40 people attended the festival. In 2016, that number was more than 11,000. Indie Memphis Executive Director Ryan Watt says that even though the festival began as a niche event for filmmakers, it now ranks among the city’s most important cultural events.

“We’re bringing people to Memphis every year who would not be coming to Memphis otherwise — filmmakers, storytellers, journalists, and industry people who come from L.A. and New York,” Watt says. “They are people who tell stories about us when they go home. So for us to be in the conversation nationally, internationally in the film world is important.”

But the most important element is the audience, which is overwhelmingly from Memphis and the Mid-South area. Indie Memphis’ mission is to offer Mid-South audiences experiences they won’t get anywhere else. It’s what has kept the festival going at a time when other regional festivals are vanishing. It’s why Watt and company have plans to use the 20th edition of Indie Memphis to thank the people of the Bluff City.

When the festival invades Overton Square on Friday, November 3rd, it will kick off a three-day block party. Cooper between Union and Monroe will be closed and a giant tent erected. The space is a nexus between three of the festival’s weekend venues — Playhouse on the Square, Circuit Playhouse, and the Hattiloo Theatre. Equipped with a portable outdoor screen, the tent will not only be a gathering place for the audience, it will become a venue itself.

On Friday night, it will host the music video competition, where bands and directors from all over the world will present their latest works, followed by a special screening of Thank You, Friends: Big Star’s Third Live … And More. The documentary is a record of the night musicians from all over the globe came together to pay tribute to the legacy of Alex Chilton and the band of Memphis misfits who grew from obscurity into one of the most influential acts in rock history. The free screening will be hosted by Big Star drummer and Ardent Studios executive Jody Stephens.

Saturday night, the official 20th anniversary celebration street party, featuring DJ Alex Turley and “visual treats on the outdoor big screen,” will rage until midnight.

Here’s a look at some of the highlights to catch at the 2017 Indie Memphis Film Festival. Thom Pain

Two days before the festival moves to Overton Square, it will open on Wednesday, November 1st with a gala red carpet show at The Orpheum Theatre’s Halloran Centre. The opening night film is Thom Pain, starring Rainn Wilson, who became internationally famous during his eight-year run as Dwight Schrute on The Office, the wildly successful NBC comedy. The film, which was adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, Thom Pain (based on nothing) by Will Eno, is basically a one-man show, in which the lead character’s rambling comic monolog reveals deep truths about himself and life itself.

The play has been translated into more than a dozen languages and is regularly performed around the world. This adaptation was recorded during Wilson’s starring run at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse and will make its world premiere at Indie Memphis.

Wilson, Eno, director Oliver Butler, and producer Gil Cates will all be in attendance for a Q&A after the screening. New York Times reviewer Charles Isherwood said Thom Pain “can leave you both breathless with exhilaration and, depending on your sensitivity to meditations on the bleak and beautiful mysteries of human experience, in a puddle of tears.”

You Look Like

You Look Like

Back in May, The Memphis Flyer‘s Chris Davis reported on You Look Like, a made-in-Memphis comedy phenomenon created by Katrina Coleman and Tommy Oler.

“I had gone to see it and was really inspired by it, so I got local filmmakers to make a show,” says Craig Brewer. “Sarah Fleming was in charge of shooting it. Edward Valibus was in charge of cutting it together. We made a sizzle reel, and then we took that sizzle reel and sold the concept to [independent studio] Gunpowder and Sky.”

With the backing of a national production company, Brewer’s BR2 Productions, led by producer Erin Hagee Freeman, created 10 10-minute episodes of the most radical game show you are likely to see. Two comedians face each other on the P&H’s tiny stage and trade insults. The only rule is each line must start with the phrase “You look like …”

It’s no-holds-barred shade throwing, but despite all the wildly offensive vitriol, the mood is convivial. “It was very important for us to capture the atmosphere we felt at the P&H Cafe. You felt very safe to laugh,” says Brewer. “It just felt inspiring. It didn’t feel insulting. That was the key thing we had to figure out about the show. How do we capture that feeling in that live audience?”

This will be the world debut of the show, which will screen four episodes. You Look Like is in turns shocking and side splitting. An audience applause meter determines the winners, but some of the best moments take place in the heavily graffitied bathroom of the P&H, where comedians who lose the duel of wits are forced to stare into the Mirror of Shame and insult themselves.

Producer and editor Valibus was responsible for cutting down the hours of filmed material into a coherent, fast-paced contest. “The closest comparison is a roast battle, but they usually tell about three jokes per comedian. That’s a bazooka. We’re more like a machine gun. … I think what’s really funny is watching a comedian take a hit. Sometimes they’ll be like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty true. That’s spot on.'”

Valibus says the edgy humor is ultimately empowering. “I think it’s because everybody gets theirs. There’s self-depreciation in just being attacked. It’s finding that we’re all screwed up. It’s nice that someone took the time to find out what’s screwed up about you.”

King

MLK 50

Next year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, a tragedy whose consequences are still being felt today, in Memphis and all over the country. In the first of many upcoming commemorative events, Indie Memphis’ programmer Brandon Harris has put together a slate of films built around the theme of civil rights history and protest, beginning on Friday, November 3rd at the Hattiloo Theatre with Uptight!, a 1968 film directed by Jules Dassin. Shot in Detroit, the groundbreaking independent production, which tells a story of hope, paranoia, and betrayal among black militants, was inspired by John Ford’s The Informers and features a soundtrack by Stax legends Booker T. and the MGs.

Later that night at Studio on the Square, is Working In Protest, a documentary by Indie Memphis veterans Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley. “This film covers 30 years of protest,” says Hawley. “We were documenting these events in a short form kind of way, because we felt like we had to. It was happening around us, and we are natural documentarians. We never really intended to make it a feature or something that would go to festivals. We just wanted to put it up on the internet and say, ‘Look what has happened around us yesterday.’ But then when we looked back, we realized that they all kind of connect. They show an evolution in the last 20 years of protest in the U.S.”

The film includes footage of demonstrations from both Democratic and Republican national conventions, as well as Occupy Wall Street, and the Moral Monday movement in North Carolina. “You see the rise of the militarization of the police,” says Galinsky. “It’s not a critique of protest, but you see a layer of ineffectiveness in our protest, and it raises a question of what we might do if we really want change.”

On Saturday afternoon, Wade Gardner will bring the conversation into the present day with his startling documentary. “Marvin Booker Was Murdered tells the story of a homeless street preacher whose family is from Memphis, Tennessee,” says the director.

Marvin Booker’s father was Rev. B. R. Booker, an AME church elder who was involved in the 1968 protests that brought Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis. Marvin met King as a child and, after the assassination, devoted his life to memorizing the civil rights leader’s speeches and spreading the message of justice and acceptance. “He was in Denver,” says Gardner, “and as he was waiting to be booked into jail, he was beaten to death by five jail guards. It was caught on video, witnessed by more than 20 people.”

Booker’s assailants were never indicted. “As soon as Marvin was killed, the cover-up began. The deputies got together to get their stories straight, and the demonization was in full force. The way they treated the Booker family was as if they had committed the crime.”

After the screening, Garner and the Booker family will be present to discuss the latest developments in the case and answer questions from the audience.

The MLK50 program includes a bloc of short films by Memphis filmmakers, including Katori Hall’s Arkabutla, Mark Goshen Jones’ Henry, and Myles by Kevin Brooks.

The BLM Bridge Protest: One Year Later is a documentary short by Commercial Appeal photojournalist Yolanda M. James, who was on hand on July 10, 2016 when 1,000 protesters shut down the Hernando De Soto bridge.

“One of the thoughts that ran through my mind was that I was documenting an historical moment, and I could not screw it up,” she recalls. “Memphis had not seen a protest this large since the 1960s, and it was important to record as much of this spontaneous event as possible. It was my day off, but I needed to be there to capture the news as it unfolded. At times I had to catch my breath because the scene had an overwhelming sense of captivating energy that genuinely touched my heart and spirit.”

The film combines audio interviews with activists and MPD Director Michael Rallings with images captured on the day of the protest. “We needed to hear their voices on how the event transpired, as well as to see if any changes were made to better relations between police and the community,” says James.

Abel Ferrara

Indie Memphis was founded by a group of independent filmmakers who wouldn’t take no for an answer, and through the last two decades, it has continued to celebrate that spirit of unfettered creation and expression. Few filmmakers fit that bill better than this year’s featured guest, Abel Ferrara.

The 66-year-old director made his debut in 1981 with the now-legendary exploitation film Ms. 45, a gritty tale of a mute woman, played by Zoë Lund, who takes bloody revenge on the men who raped her.

Indie Memphis will celebrate Ferrara’s uncompromising legacy with a double feature. The first is a 25th-anniversary screening of The Bad Lieutenant, the 1992 film written by Lund and Ferrara. Harvey Keitel stars as the most corrupt policeman imaginable, who spends his days smoking crack and shaking down innocent citizens for drug money. But the brutal murder of a nun awakens something in the unnamed officer, and he struggles to choose between redemption and ultimate damnation.

Ferrara will also host a screening of The Blackout, his 1997 feature starring Matthew Modine as a troubled man trying to reconstruct what happened during a wild night on the town in Miami with his friend, played by Dennis Hopper.

Lately, Ferrara has devoted himself to music. Alive in France is the director’s documentary of his band, the Flyz, on their European tour. It will screen on Saturday, November 4th, at 10:30 p.m. On Sunday, November 5th, the Flyz will play live at the Hi-Tone in Crosstown.

Good Grief

Good Grief

Kids on the playground ask tough questions like, “What kind of tool did your daddy use to kill your mommy?” These kinds of stories are related with disarming ease in Good Grief, a lively documentary about children who’ve lost parents or close care-givers, and a camp in Arkansas, that provides them with community, a place to heal, and how to manage when the playground’s not much fun.

Hopefully, the creative team behind this tightly wrapped documentary had a considerable budget for Kleenex. It’s hard to watch all 52 minutes with dry cheeks, and the tears it elicits — as likely to arise from rage or horror as sympathy — are never cheap or easy. As this candid, often wise film from co-directors Melissa Anderson Sweazy and Laura Jean Hocking reminds, there are many different kinds of feelings, and it’s okay to work through the whole spectrum.

Sweazy had a reasonable objective for Good Grief, which was named for Baptist Memorial Healthcare’s Kemmons Wilson Family Center for Good Grief. She and Hocking wanted to make a movie about living, not dying, and to tell the sophisticated, sometimes shocking story of a camp for grieving kids to people who might not normally respond enthusiastically to any or all of those words.

Good Grief introduces siblings Connor and Ava, whose mother was murdered by their father in a terrible act of domestic violence. It introduces Meaghan, whose brother AJ mistook their father for an intruder and, having been raised to use arms and defend himself and his family, shot through the door with tragic results. It introduces AJ, who recalls the whole story with clarity and insight. Also introduced are Angela Hamblen-Kelly, the executive director and visionary force behind the center, and the camp counselors and volunteers. Everyone onscreen has lost loved ones to illness, accident, and ongoing disasters

“We know hope exists; we see it every day,” Kelly explains. “Sometimes we let people hold onto us because we know it’s out there if they don’t. We let them know they can hang onto us until they can find it themselves.”

Death is a tough sell, but a hopeful outlook, lyrical visuals courtesy of cinematographer Sarah Fleming, and a sumptuous original soundtrack by Toby Vest and Krista Wroten Combest, make this potential downer float like a helium balloon. — Chris Davis

The Blackout

Twenty Years of Indie Memphis Memories

We asked filmmakers and audience members to share with us some of their favorite memories of the last two decades of Memphis’ premiere film festival.

My first real life moment as a filmmaker was seeing a film I made on a big screen for the first time in front of an audience. It was a wild experimental film that I’m sure was very trying for the audience, but the festival screened it nonetheless and a kind man by the name of Craig Brewer came to me afterwards and told me he liked what we were doing.
Whether that was the kindness in his heart or a genuine remark, it changed my path forever. I try to return that favor these days. I love seeing new filmmakers screen new films. There’s magic in those dark rooms when those images appear onto the screen.

Another favorite memory would be when I decided to propose to my now-husband in front of 350 people at the premiere of my documentary, This Is What Love in Action Looks Like. Having all of those special people in one room at the same time and being at the place where my religion is practiced, there was no place more fitting than on the stage at Indie Memphis — Morgan Jon Fox, filmmaker

Seeing [West Memphis 3 member] Jason Baldwin walk out, unannounced, onto the stage during the Q & A for Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory. — John Pickle, filmmaker

Jerry Lawler telling Andy Kaufman stories for 45 minutes after the screening of Man on the Moon. — Kent Osborne, actor, animator, and writer for Adventure Time

The entire 2011 festival is one of the best times I have ever had at a film festival. I ran into a lot of friends, made a lot of new friends, enjoyed as many of the non-screening activities as possible, and saw many great films. — Skizz Cyzyk, filmmaker, Indie Memphis jury member

I loved the days of screening on Beale Street and hanging out with filmmakers at the (then) less crowded bars after. — Stephen Stanley, producer/director

Screening my Destroy Memphis documentary last year, after waiting 10 years to find the right person to help me edit and get it on the screen. — Mike McCarthy, filmmaker

Occupy Indie Memphis. It was a timely and ridiculous premise for the Awards Show in 2011, and we shot the video sequences at the fest. People actually thought that a group of rejected filmmakers were protesting the festival. Chris Parnell even got in on the shenanigans! Every year feels like one big lock-in: You don’t sleep, you run around like crazy, and at least one of your friends cries. I love it! — Savannah Bearden, filmmaker/actor, and awards show producer
For a full list of films and a schedule of events, visit www.indiememphis.com.