Tag: Orange Mound

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Cover Feature News

For the Culture

A crowd at a previous Juneteenth Festival (Photo: CBJ VISION)

Tone’s been busy. The arts nonprofit organization is dedicated to “elevat[ing] Black artists as innovative thought leaders, courageous storytellers, and risk-taking problem solvers through intentional exhibitions, conversations, concerts, and artist development, “with the goal of “shift[ing] the culture of Memphis through groundbreaking art, media, and communication that centers Black experiences in our city’s past, present, and future.”

To accomplish that goal, Tone has to keep a lot of plates spinning. The latest exhibition at their Orange Mound gallery, which opened on June 8th, is called “Invisible Man.” The theme for the group show, featuring artists from inside and outside Memphis, is deconstructing concepts of masculinity. “We’ve chosen that name because the essence of the exhibition is inspired by Ralph Ellison’s book Invisible Man,” says curator Kylon Wagner.

Tone’s annual Juneteenth celebration has become wildly popular. This year, it will stretch into three days, from Friday, June 14th, to Sunday, June 16th. It will feature the biggest lineup of entertainment yet and give attendees a preview of the latest developments in the organization’s grand opus: The transformation of a derelict Purina animal feed factory into an innovative center for Black arts, wellness, and entrepreneurship called Orange Mound Tower.

Sitting in the freshly renovated offices of the Tone gallery in Orange Mound, Tone executive director Victoria Jones says sometimes her organization’s ambitious agenda of community transformation can feel overwhelming. “It’s been going, it feels like hyper speed some days. We at Tone internally have really had to focus on building capacity so we could take on the project — not just take on the development of the project, but once it exists in its full capacity, actually grow into that larger space. And so, we have been working on capacity building for our staff, which has led to some really great partnerships with the Mellon Foundation, where we’ve been able to get everybody an honorable salary, wages, and healthcare. Obviously, that’s gonna change the morale of a team! So that’s been really exciting. We have had an opportunity to work with folks like the Memphis Music Initiative, who led the [office] renovation back here for us. … It’s a strong, solid team right now. We’re really learning our systems differently. Because we’ve been such a young, kind of scrappy organization that we were just like, ‘Ooh, let’s try this. Ooh, let’s try that.’ But now we’re learning what it means to actually build out systems, plan for the future, and see those things through. We’re learning what accountability structures could look like, and that’s been giving us space for our imaginations. I think that was a fear for me — and that could be my own Aquarius nature — that systems would block some of that imagination work. But we’ve understood, with the systems we’re beginning to implement, it actually gives the imagination space to grow and see the visions through.”

Juneteenth

1862 was not a good year for the United States. The Civil War was raging, and things were not going to plan for President Abraham Lincoln. In the East, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army was menacing Washington, D.C., and Lincoln was firing a succession of failed generals. Things were going better in the West, where General Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign to deny the Confederacy access to the Mississippi River had led to the capture of Memphis. But the cost was great, and Grant’s forces were getting bogged down laying siege to Vicksburg, Mississippi.

In early September, the two armies fought to a draw at Antietam, Maryland. It was the single bloodiest day in American history, with more than 27,000 dead, wounded, or missing. But it halted Lee’s invasion of the North, at least temporarily. On September 22nd, to capitalize on the victory, and give his abolitionist supporters the moral crusade against slavery they craved, President Lincoln announced the Emancipation Proclamation. Effective January 1, 1863, all slaves in the Confederate territories would be henceforth free. As the news of liberation spread, many enslaved Black people in the West ran away and flocked to newly liberated Memphis, altering the city’s demographics forever.

But many of the enslaved, who had been purposefully kept ignorant by their masters, didn’t know about the emancipation. Even after the Confederacy surrendered in April 1865, slavery continued in then-remote places like Texas. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas, to begin the military occupation and Reconstruction, and informed the people of Texas that “In accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” In the years that followed, the more than 250,000 Black people liberated that day started calling the holiday Juneteenth. The National Museum of African American History and Culture calls it “our country’s second Independence Day.”

Since it was founded as The CLTV, Tone has made Juneteenth their day of celebration. “We don’t have that many holidays that center our experience in general,” says Jones. “We have had to create Juneteenth. I think it’s our first opportunity to begin to truly celebrate freedom, even before it’s been fully won — ’cause I feel like we still got a little ways to go. It’s an opportunity for us to take a pause and go all the way up for what our ancestors had to go through, what our elders have walked us through, and what we can do in the future. It feels a lot like a real opportunity to celebrate this baton that’s been passed generation to generation. … Slavery didn’t happen a super long time ago, as much as we want to feel like it was some distant experience. My grandmother was raised in a home with someone who was enslaved as a child. The way that affects my family, and the ways I understand generation to generation what had to be sacrificed for my bloodline to be where it is right now, I don’t know of another holiday that would give me room to reflect on that, celebrate that, lift that up, love on the ancestors that had to go through that, and imagine what we can still be working on and doing going forward.”

In 2021, the festival debuted at 2205 Lamar Avenue, a long-vacant, blighted post-industrial site that featured a tower visible from all over the historic Orange Mound neighborhood. “That was the first festival,” says Jones. “We’d done one Juneteenth celebration before that. It did not include a festival. We outfitted this space to do a big gala. Then, after Covid, we thought we needed to bring it outdoors. What could an outdoor celebration look like? Should we try a festival? Can we do a festival?”

The 2021 Juneteenth festival was an unlikely success. Jones recalls a bartender, hired that first year, in a panic wondering how they were going to accommodate thousands of people in a place with no power and no working bathrooms. Unapologetic, Tone’s partner in the Orange Mound Tower project, provided the entertainment. The gathering went a long way toward putting Tone on the map of Memphis arts orgs. “It’s grown substantially each year,” says Jones. “Even with the rain that hit last year, we saw a huge boost in attendance and participation from the artists and headliners we had selected. It’s been a fun growth to watch.”

One of Tone’s goals for the festival is to make it a sort of Black homecoming, attracting people who have left Memphis to come back. “We’re wanting to name Memphis as the cultural beacon of the South, but wanting to do that in connection with other cities,” says Jones. “If we’re thinking about the emancipation of Black folks and that entire experience, the thought that the country as a whole can reckon with any kind of post-racist experience and not have that reckoning happening here in the South is null and void.”

When designing the celebration, Jones says the organizers asked themselves, “How do we participate in and help launch some of those efforts to offer up space for Black folks to be healing, and inviting folks from the South to participate in that? And then essentially hoping that the festival and we can become so large that it’s a true beacon back home, an invitation to come back home, if it’s for the weekend or if it’s for longer. Come back home; help build this new future with us. Juneteenth really gives us that opportunity. We are watching folks pull up for that weekend and get a taste of Memphis. It’s folks who might not have been here for a long time and are like, ‘I didn’t know this was happening here. I didn’t know these folks were here. I didn’t know this community was here.’”

Appropriately, for a Black homecoming celebration, Juneteenth 2024 kicks off with a game of Spades. How did the card game get so popular in the Black community? “I don’t know,” says Jones. “I just know I ain’t never been to a function without it.”

“It’s a game about making do with what you have. You get that hand, and how can you make it jump?” says Willie McDonald, Tone’s development director. “The gala didn’t feel like the right first touch point for the weekend. So just trying to figure out, how do we welcome folk? What we have been seeing in attendance lately is, folks are coming from outside of the city to join us. … Our Juneteenth celebration happens under the banner of a family reunion, and Spades is an essential family reunion activity.”

The Friday night Spades tournament will be held in the Tone gallery, amid the artwork of the “Invisible Man” exhibit. More than 150 people have signed up so far. “We’ll have a whole new, larger crowd to experience that exhibition,” says Jones.

“It was live last year,” says McDonald. “There was some controversy in the room.”

On Saturday night, the celebration moves across the street to Orange Mound Tower for the gala. “It’s in one of the smaller warehouses,” says Jones. “This year, the is theme is revival. I’m imagining reviving the tower. And so the theme will be ‘Sunday best.’”

The seated banquet will include a keynote speaker and entertainment from Beale Street musicians and the Tennessee Mass Choir. “The way it’s sectioned off, it gives us three or four different room opportunities. We gonna have some unique experiences in each room,” says Jones.

On Sunday, the party kicks into high gear, with a vendor marketplace and Black-owned food trucks. One new addition this year will be a carousel with actual horses. Since the event commemorated by Juneteenth happened in Texas, many enslaved people found out about their emancipation from Black cowboys who spread the word on horseback. The Black rancher tradition has recently been in the spotlight, thanks to Jordan Peele’s film Nope, and Beyonce’s country-flavored Cowboy Carter album. (Peele is currently producing a documentary about Black cowboys.) “That’s a real part of Juneteenth tradition that I don’t think we get to elevate as often, that it was a Black cowboy letting a lot of the enslaved folks know,” says Jones. “We’ve been trying to find unique ways to tie Black folks on horses into the experience. It’s the symbolism of freedom and mobility.”

The star of the show on Sunday is the music. This year’s lineup is stacked with talent, both from Memphis and elsewhere in the South. McDonald says the nature of the event helped attract some big names. “The significance of us having this Juneteenth in Orange Mound, being the oldest neighborhood established by emancipated Black folks in the United States, and the funding from that going toward the larger capital campaign efforts for establishing a hub for Black innovation.”

The biggest name performer is neo-soul legend Erykah Badu, who will be doing a set under her DJ name Lo Down Loretta Brown. Memphis hip-hop legend, Three 6 Mafia founder, and secret engine of popular culture innovation Juicy J, whose accomplishments are too numerous to list here, will be on hand to deliver a highly anticipated performance. Also on the bill is New Orleans rapper and record label owner Curren$y, fresh off his 2024 collaboration with Trauma Tone on Highway 600.

Hitkidd (Photo: Kam Darko Visuals)

The official headliner is Memphis’ own Hitkidd. The producer of GloRilla’s song of the summer “F.N.F. (Let’s Go)” and Campsouth Records mastermind is no stranger to the OMT stage. “He was at last year’s Juneteenth, and probably my favorite performance of the night,” says Jones.

“It was epic!” says McDonald. “[Last year] the main stage rained out, so our entire crowd stormed the north warehouse, and it made the second stage turn into the main stage. We had to get barricades up in like 10 minutes. Then we got Hitkidd standing up on top of tables and Slimeroni and three other female artists going HAM. It was the moment.”

The Architects of the Future

One person who attended last year’s Juneteenth festival was Germane Barnes. He’s an associate professor and the director of the Community, Housing & Identity Lab at the University of Miami School of Architecture; a Rome Prize Fellow; and the winner of the 2021 Harvard GSD Wheelwright Prize. He was at the festival at the suggestion of Chicago-based artist, professor, and entrepreneur Theaster Gates, a pedigree which impressed Jones and the Tone board of directors. “His practice is based around building out culturally informed spaces, spaces that have the cultural references that resonate for the people that they’re designed for,” says Jones.

Germane Barnes (Photo: Courtesy Studio Barnes)

The architect was intrigued the moment he saw the tower rising over Lamar. “He walked with me all the way to the top of the tower the first day that he came,” says McDonald. “He stopped and took detailed photographs on every floor. He attended the gala. He hung out with us the whole weekend. Then he leaves, and we don’t hear from him for a couple weeks.”

When Barnes recontacted Tone, he asked permission to use the Orange Mound Tower project in a class he was teaching at Ohio State University. “He’s got these grad students, and he had them do renderings of the tower. So we fly out to Ohio, and we’re looking at these CAD renderings. They’re splitting the tower open like an egg, showing us cross sections. They’re throwing all kinds of different facilities into it, just giving us perspective on what it could turn into. Some of these would be featured in the space where we’re hosting the gala. There’ll be an installation showing the progress of the tower that we’re sharing right now.”

Jones says, “The work we got to do with those students was so important. That’s our first time learning how to give feedback to architects. He’s pushing us, ‘Speak up, do you like this? How do you feel about this?’ … We got a lot of positive feedback from the students as well. Most of their coursework is for projects that don’t even exist in real life, so to know this could affect and touch an actual community was meaningful.”

Orange Mound Tower (Photo: Chris McCoy)

Barnes formally came on board as the architect of record for the Orange Mound Tower project in early 2024, thanks to a grant from the Memphis Music Initiative. “Germane got on that first call with us excited, and that felt good, really affirming that this is a dream project,” says Jones. “He’s never gotten to do a project of this scale, and so for him, this is an opportunity to touch a big project that, as he describes it, would usually be reserved for a 70-year-old white man. Him being able to come in as a young Black guy and flex what he can do, we know he knows that in a space this Black, it’s just gonna be incredible. He’s teamed up with local firms LRK [Looney Ricks Kiss] and APA [Aaron Patrick Architects], and they’re creating an architecture dream team for us.”

While Unapologetic remains an ownership partner, Tone has taken the front seat in development work. The Tower team also includes Brent Hooks, an accomplished project manager with more than a decade’s worth of experience in large-scale urban development and complex project coordination. “His extensive background in civil engineering and construction management ensures the successful delivery of high-quality projects, contributing significantly to the team’s success,” says Jones.

Veteran developers Bill Ganus and Darrell Cobbins serve as development consultants. “They’re just so deeply familiar with the landscape of Memphis, and they’ve really been helping us identify some moving parts. We want such a unique approach to tenancy, and how we’re imagining these kind of communities forming around the art and culture, food and agriculture, small business, and health and wellness. [Darrell] has been encouraging and inspiring as we’re imagining how we can truly build out communities around these concepts, not just getting folks to sign leases, so that they can also participate in imagining what the space could look like.”

With almost $4 million invested in the project’s design phase, and another $7 to $9 million on deck, Jones expects to be ready to move Tone onto the 10-acre site sometime in 2025, along with other tenants who will sign up for space in the massive warehouse that will be rejuvenated in the first phase of the project. “We’ve broken it into digestible chunks to make our fundraising job a bit easier,” says McDonald.

Jones says Tone is trying to build an infrastructure for Black freedom in Memphis, to retain talent, and to attract new people and new innovation to the city. “What does it mean if we’re able to actually build the infrastructure in our image in ways that are more thoughtful, more innovative than the structures that we’ve seen around New York, L.A., even Atlanta? You don’t have to force a fit here. You can actually build it to be what you want it to be. Once that infrastructure is developed, or at least in those beginning phases, we’re inviting folks in. Hey, this platform is here. You ain’t gotta go nowhere. Matter of fact, we need you not to go anywhere! Go see the world, but keep your home here, so we can build this city together.”

Visit tonememphis.org for a full schedule of Tone’s Juneteenth events and for more information.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Across the Lines

David Pryor (right) with the author in 2016

The Shelby County Commission — and county government in general — normally gets less public and media attention than do Memphis city government and the city council. This is largely due to long-held tradition held over from the numerous decades of the preceding century when the bulk of the county’s total population resided in the traditional urban core.

White flight, sprawl, and suburban growth have altered the demographic proportions and residential patterns significantly, of course, but even before the balance of population began to shift so radically eastward and outward, the fact was that, in Shelby as in the state’s other 95 counties, county government has been the chief instrument of self-government — not least because Shelby County is the Venn diagram; it contains not only Memphis but six other incorporated municipalities and much unincorporated turf as well.

The county’s budget is larger than any city’s, and it has primary constitutional charge of health and education matters, as well as significant and growing responsibility over law enforcement.

Monday’s meeting of the county commission reflected the unique aspect of our binary system, actually one of multiplicities.

One significant debate concerned the expanses into which solar energy enterprises — those harbingers of our greener future — can be allowed to spread. Mindful of the outer county’s increasing residential mass, the boundaries for such installations were significantly circumscribed: Going forward, they must be distant from each other by at least a mile and no closer than 600 feet at any point to residential areas. And they must be limited in size to a square mile.

Another prolonged discussion concerned the question of whether a portion of a long-dormant planned commercial development in the Eads area should be allowed to proceed with the development of septic tanks pending an opportunity to connect with the Memphis sewer system. (It will be remembered that such new tie-ins with new developments outside the city were discontinued as of 2017.)

The developers of the area under consideration Monday — one that was de-annexed in 2020 — hope eventually to manage such a connection. But expressed concerns on Monday from Eads residents and defenders of the Memphis sand aquifer about potential pollution resulted in a unanimous turn-down of the septic tank proposal by the commissioners.

After these and various other agenda items were dealt with, several of the commissioners turned their solemn attention to a matter that increasingly roils citizens everywhere in Shelby County — shoot-outs like the one that in the last few days resulted in the deaths of MPD Officer Joseph McKinney and attendees at an Orange Mound block party.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Commission chair Miska Clay Bibbs. Indeed so. The bell tolls for city and county alike.

………………………………………………………………………………

David Pryor (right) with the author in 2016

In Memoriam

He was not a Memphian nor even a Tennessean, but Arkansan David Pryor, a near neighbor who died Saturday after a lingering illness, deserves our sympathy and remembrance as well.

Pryor, who represented Arkansas as a congressman, as governor, and as senator, was the genuine article, a selfless public servant. He may turn out to have been the last major Democrat in his state’s history, but as my friend and former Arkansas Gazette colleague Ernie Dumas observes in an almost book-length obituary in the Arkansas Times this week, Pryor was much more — “the most beloved member of the U.S. Senate” in his time, across all partisan lines. That was something that I learned myself when he took me in tow on my first visit to Washington as a cub reporter back in the ’60s. R.I.P.

Categories
Cover Feature News

TONE’s Juneteenth Celebration Weekend

Photo: Kai Ross

Curved acrylic nails will be paired with Queen Charlotte-approved corsets, poker faces will be tested in a Spades tournament, and thousands will pour over to Orange Mound Tower to celebrate the culmination of Memphis-based art organization TONE’s annual Juneteenth weekend. A B.A.P.S-themed gala and a family reunion bash are the crowning jewels in this festive event honoring Black culture and freedom.

Kelsee Woods dances to a performance by singer-songwriter Talibah Safiya. (Photo: Noah Stewart)
Talibah Safiya (Photo: Noah Stewart)

For Black Joy

According to TONE, Juneteenth is the day that “Black Americans were finally free to be seen as humans, and not objects.”

While many believe the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, marked the end of slavery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture reminds us that it “could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.” All enslaved people were not considered free until June 19, 1865. On that day, 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform more than 250,000 enslaved people they were free. This holiday is celebrated as the formal end of slavery in America.

When considering the cultural significance of Juneteenth for Black Americans, it’s fitting for TONE to host a celebration here. Victoria Jones, TONE’s executive director, says the organization is dedicated to holding a space for Black people to tell stories through film, visual arts, photography, and more, and it seeks to “heal a city and its trauma around racial injustice and all the things that come with that, but really, truly centering the joy of Black folks in that space and lifting that up through innovation.”

“However Black folks are showing up and telling their stories, we’re really working on capturing them, lifting them up, and putting them on a platform here at TONE,” Jones adds.

The organization has been around for about eight years, originally launched at Crosstown Arts as an initiative to diversify their audience. But once TONE saw the capacity their work had for building community and empowering Black people, they hopped around nomadically. However, Jones says, after having negative experiences at “legacy institutions” and “predominantly white organizations,” they realized they needed a place of their own.

“Realizing that those spaces were never really truly intended for us, even as they are trying to work on extending invitations to Black folks, we thought it would be in our best interest, and necessary for our sustainability, to open up our own space.”

On January 11, 2019, TONE opened the complex known as TONE HQ — at 2234 Lamar Avenue — to more than 2,500 guests from around the city. Since then, the organization has hosted a number of events — film screenings, exhibitions, and concerts — that have become cemented as pieces of Memphis iconography.

“Really any creative outlet that we can create for Black folks,” Jones says, “so we can continue to lift up the stories being told, in and around Memphis, and highlight the artists who are doing the courageous work of telling those stories.”

In 2020, the organization purchased property across the street from where their gallery currently sits. With this addition, they began to imagine how the property could serve as a “beacon of cultural innovation for Black folks,” and how they could center and lift up the work of “creatives and small business entrepreneurs.” TONE recently added an additional three acres to the property, making it 10-acres, where they are envisioning endeavors related to food, agriculture, health and wellness, education, job readiness, art, culture, tech innovation, and more.

The story of TONE itself is representative of the story of being Black in America. It’s a story that only those with lived experiences are qualified to tell. And when these stories are told, recurring themes of perseverance, resilience, and redirecting play prominent roles in planting seeds to honor those before them, and to empower both current and future generations.

Jones explains there is often a separation between the present and slavery, as though it existed “some very, very long time ago,” but that is not the case. She tells the Flyer that her Big Mama (grandmother) was raised by a man who was enslaved as a child. Jones says in her own youth, her understanding of Juneteenth was that it was a community service day. And while she agrees there is merit in choosing that as a way to commemorate the holiday, the day serves as a true reason to celebrate. Juneteenth is a time for Black Americans to celebrate their ancestors — and all there is to look forward to.

“N*ggas is free!” Jones exclaims. “That’s not always been true. Very recently that was not true. So to have the opportunity to give folks night after night of different experiences and touchpoints to just lean in and think about, honor, and celebrate the ancestors that got us here, the generations that it took for us to experience this level of freedom, and the celebration necessary to know that you gotta keep going. Sometimes we just need to be able to touch down, do a little dancing, so we can keep a good fight.”

At the center of Jones’ conversations on Juneteenth is Black joy, and when talking with the Flyer she makes sure the conversation concentrates on the freedom of Black people, as opposed to what they were being freed from.

JuDa Ezell with David Hammons’ African-American Flag (Photo: Kai Ross)
A small group of festival attendees pose for a photo. (Photo: Noah Stewart)

For Culture

TONE’s Juneteenth: A Family Reunion, will host a variety of events from June 15th through 18th. The theme of a family reunion may seem obvious to those whose summers consisted of line dancing while wearing T-shirts adorned with family members’ names linked on a tree — and who know the realness of the “Cousin! What’s Up” gif of late rapper Tupac Shakur. However, to those who have no familiarity with these experiences, it may be less obvious.

“Families were destroyed during slavery,” Jones says. “Folks were stealing children and selling them to people.

“Folks were stealing mommas and selling them to people, stealing daddies and selling them to people, so the tradition of family reunions truly comes out of this desire to find your people, know your people.”

She also says family reunions for most people are an invitation back to the South, where many Black people’s roots are planted, and the decision to promote the celebration as a family reunion is an invitation to bring people together to “celebrate and love on each other for a weekend.”

TONE’s Juneteenth commemorations have been an evolution, with the first event being a Juneteenth Gala in 2019 where they invited Memphis musicians, visual and performing artists, and dancers to help energize the festivities.

The intention has always been to celebrate and showcase Black culture in the most authentic light, and that first TONE Juneteenth celebration was nothing short of that, with Chef Fran Mosley catering a spread of soul food favorites like fried chicken, macaroni-and-cheese, and peach cobbler, which Jones says “leans into what makes our people so special.”

This year’s weekend follows a format launched in 2022, the first year TONE was able to host both a gala and a festival. The weekend kicks off on Thursday, June 15th, with a screening of Robert Townsend’s 1997 film B.A.P.S (Black American Princesses), starring Halle Berry and Natalie Desselle, at Malco Studio on the Square in Midtown at 7 p.m., in collaboration with Indie Memphis.

In keeping the momentum of an authentic family reunion experience, TONE will host a Spades tournament on Friday, June 16th, with a prize of $200, where they’ll use custom-made playing cards. “The Spades tournament is a night for folks to come out and enjoy one of the most sacred card games known to man,” event organizers say. “It is a night for people to converse and convene over good music, food, and drinks. It is a night for all the big and all the bad to come out and claim their seat at the table.”

“If we’re going to have a family reunion, then we gotta have the Spades going,” Jones says.

A festival attendee matches the energy on their shirt. (Photo: Noah Stewart)
Chef Araba Esoun embraces family. (Photo: Noah Stewart)

For Empowerment

For those who can’t seem to get enough of the Black American Princess aesthetic and are privy to the words of Lady Whistledown, the Juneteenth Gala will provide the ultimate experience. The Cadre Building Downtown will take attendees “from the Met Gala to the Mound” with some “ghetto fabulousness” in the mix.

“I haven’t had a number of opportunities to dress up and go to a gala, put on a gown, and all that,” says Jones. “Truly, what other reason than the freedom of my people. You know I gotta step out for that.”

The gala has become a staple in TONE’s Juneteenth weekend, as it was the organization’s inaugural celebratory event in 2019. “It was bursting at the seams then,” says Jones. “That’s how we knew we couldn’t do it here [at the TONE gallery] no more.”

Last year was the first time TONE pushed for a theme for the gala. They went with Afrofuturism, and people showed up in their “futuristic, beautiful, Black garb,” Jones says. This year, with the B.A.P.S theme, they anticipate baby hair galore, grills, and about 1,001 different approaches to corsets.

“If you could imagine a Met Gala with a Memphis twist — and when I say ‘Memphis’ I mean the actual city of Memphis, not the things we pretend it is, but true Memphis sh*t — I think that’s what you can expect.”

While these aesthetics may at times be shunned, Jones says it’s being embraced — and in a royal setting. “The emphasis has truly been on royalty, like Black folks showing up in this space of royalty. A lot of our belief system revolves around the idea that Black folks show up however they show up, and that space is to be honored,” says Jones.

Perhaps the most iconic component of TONE’s Juneteenth celebration is the festival, which was first held in 2021 as a way to celebrate the holiday in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic — a way for TONE to bring the magic of their indoor gala outside.

“I think we hosted over 11 artists, we had the marketplace set up, 90 percent of the vendors sold out, and the ones that didn’t came real close to selling out,” says Jones.

The festival has historically been held at the Orange Mound Tower, which holds special cultural significance for Black Memphians. While the gala has been held at different locations throughout the years, Jones says the festival will always be held in Orange Mound, as the neighborhood was built by the first generation freed from slavery.

“If we’re thinking about the legacy that came out of enslavement, then Orange Mound is literally the most powerful display of perseverance and innovation,” says Jones. “The Black folks that were told they were nothing more than property found a way to build an entire community upon freedom.”

The festival has always promised an outstanding experience (and FOMO potential), and this year will be no different, with headliners Project Pat, Hitkidd, and Duke Deuce and a slate of emerging talent including Talibah Safiya, Austin Crui$e, DJ Nico, Harley Quinn, and more, along with Black-owned food trucks and vendors.

Jones says this is also a moment for TONE to empower Black people economically. “The artists, we pay above what is market rate for the city, probably double for the city of Memphis. The musicians leave with money in their pocket. Our artisans, our makers, are leaving with bread in their pocket, as are the chefs and the caterers that show up with the food trucks. So it’s a beautiful day to celebrate and a beautiful way to make money.”

At its core, TONE’s Juneteenth celebration encapsulates not only the phenomenon of Black joy but also further shines a light on what makes the Black experience so unique and special — characterized by tenacious spirit and dreaming big.

“I can’t think of a single holiday that matters more than the celebration of our freedom, when we talk about Black joy, Black empowerment,” Jones says. “I can’t think of a better opportunity for real.”

For more information on TONE’s Juneteenth: A Family Reunion event (June 15th-18th, various locations), including schedule, lineup, and access to tickets, visit tonejuneteenth.com.

Categories
Art Art Feature

Forms Meet Functions Live Painting Show

LueElla Marshall was driving home from her job at Kroger when she got a call from God. The streets in her neighborhood of Orange Mound were filled with litter — a sight that weighed heavy on Marshall’s heart. “It used to be a beautiful community,” she says, having lived in Orange Mound since 1966. “But for a long time, this community has been going down. Every day I came home, it looked like the city was getting dirtier and dirtier. So I said, ‘Lord, when is the City of Memphis going to come out here and clean this trash up? It’s just been so long since they’ve done that.’ So God said to me while I’m there riding in the car, he said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ 

“And I looked around and wasn’t nobody in the car but me. So I said, ‘Me?’ God said, ‘Yes, it’s you. Why don’t you do it?’ So, all right, I had to think about it. But,” Marshall continues, “when God tells you to do something, you do it all right.”

What came from this calling was Marshall’s 2016 “Art Cans” initiative, through which neighborhood artists and students painted large trash cans to be placed around the neighborhood. Marshall hadn’t really thought much of the arts, she says, until this project. “I got to learn that art is everything. I used to drive past them and think they were beautiful works of art, our receptacles,” Marshall says. “I wanted a place to show them.” And so she opened Orange Mound Gallery (OMG) that year through a grant from ArtUp. Though the gallery has hosted several exhibitions, Marshall had never shown her receptacles in the gallery setting — until now, that is, thanks to the help of artist and arts educator Lurlynn Franklin.

Franklin, Marshall says, brought a new energy to the project that had gone dormant a few years ago. Since the initial trash cans were placed around Orange Mound, many of them have been stolen or destroyed by cars crashing into them. “But I never gave up,” says Marshall, “even when I had to pay people outta my pocket to clean [up] and empty the trash every week. This is a spiritual thing. God told me to do it, but once I started, I still didn’t know what to do ’cause I didn’t get the proper support until Ms. Franklin came to me.” 

“I was just moved to help her,” Franklin says. “She’s never had an exhibition of her cans because once they’re painted, they go out in the community. And I just told her this could be a good way to fundraise and it could be good exposure for artists.”

Earle Augustus, radio program director and personality, begins work on his trash receptacle which he will continue painting upon at the “Forms Meet Functions” live show. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

And so, with Marshall’s blessing, Franklin reached out to artists through word of mouth to paint on the receptacles. The receptacles will be displayed at the University of Memphis’ Fogelman Gallery in September, and later will be sold to fundraise for OMG, with 60 percent of the profits going to the artists. Before then, the artists Franklin has gathered will participate in a live painting art show, entitled “Forms Meet Functions,” this weekend at the gallery

“People can go and watch the project’s process, talk to the artists, look at the work that they’ve created, look at their sketches, and connect the dots,” Franklin says of the evening event. “Something happens for people when they can see that.”

From left to right: Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade, Zelitra “Madamn Z” Peterson-Traylor, Toonky Berry, Lurlynn Franklin, Andrew Travis, and Clyde Johnson Jr. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

The group of more than a dozen artists range in their experience and exposure. Two of them — Michael and Lylah Newman — are still kids in grade school, and they’ll facilitate a collaborative paint-by-numbers trash can for those who attend the show to add to. Also participating are Michael and Lylah’s mom Darlene Newman, Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade, Toonky Berry, Clyde Johnson Jr., Najee Strickland, Andrew Travis, Zelitra “Madamn Z” Peterson-Traylor, Kierston Nicole Williams, Steven Williams, Earle Augustus, and Christie Taylor. 

For the project, Franklin wanted the artists to inject their own style into the cans. “Like form and function,” she says, “the can, it’s all ready to function, but you have to build the art around it. … We’re not going to have empty concepts on these cans. We’re not just slapping anything on them.” These, Franklin says, are meant to be accessible pieces of art that function as trash cans, and indeed, each can is distinct in its style, as evidenced as the artists begin their processes before the show. “It’s about people being able to truly engage with the work, the energy coming off the work.”

Madamn Z paints the basic shapes of her subject, which she will refine at the live painting show on Friday. (Photo: Abigail Morici)

For Madamn Z, the trash receptacle she’s working on harkens back to what she considers her most inspirational piece — a portrait of the model Winnie Harlow. “I use art to heal myself from Crohn’s disease,” she says. “So all of the works that I’ve done, I’ve been able to not only heal myself with, but I hope to inspire other people. … And I think [Harlow] stands out so much because our ideal of beauty has been distorted by mainstream media. And she’s like, ‘You don’t have to be perfect.’

“I remember watching her on Top Model and they called her Panda,” she continues, “and I remember how that hurt her. But she took that and she built a career, and look at what she’s doing now. So it just shows how you can go from thinking you’re on the low end of the spectrum and that you’re not worthy and that you’re trash, you feel like trash, but you’re not. You’re beautiful.”

In addition to painting the cans, Franklin also commissioned the artists to create a piece alluding to the subject of environmentalism for the show. “They were supposed to read these articles I provided and come up with a piece of art that was based on those articles,” she says. “So it’s layered. [As a viewer] it makes you curious, and you wanna dig. Like what the heck is this really about?”

One article, which was the source of a painting by Madamn Z, spoke to Dr. Martin Luther King’s environmentalism. Her piece is divided into two, with one image illustrating police brutality during the I Am a Man strike in Memphis, and the other rendering a child and parent watching that same scene on a television today. “I wanted to focus on how, although King’s dream has been realized somewhat, the reality of it is that our children are still exposed to the same dream he was trying to portray and unify everyone under,” she says. “As a mom raising two young children, that’s not a picture I want my children to be accustomed to watching, but today on the news, that’s all we see.” 

Walter “Sir Walt” Andrade touches up his painting, which will be on display as he works on his trash can at the live show. The receptacle, he says, will feature symbols representing Tyre Nichols, Gangsta Boo, and Young Dolph. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

Put simply, King’s dream is a work in progress — a sentiment Marshall echoes. She says of the 55-gallon cans used for her initiative, “Those are the drums that we used to burn our trash in when the sanitation was stopped. I got taken back to when Dr. King was marching and when T.O. Jones and his followers sent for Dr. King to come to Memphis. … I didn’t know God was going to give me something to do that Dr. King was connected to. I always say this [work], it is the spirit of Dr. King and T.O. Jones. It has been a blessing for me.” 

Marshall now also heads the Orange Mound Neighborhood and Veterans Association Inc., in addition to her work with OMG, which she hopes to grow as a community space and improve through grants and donations. 

Andrew Travis paints his can in his distinct abstract style. Behind the table, as with each table at the show, are samples of the artist’s work. (Credit: Abigail Morici)

“I didn’t know all this was coming,” she says. “See, I’m 75. Faith had to get me here, and I’m still going. People don’t know this gallery here; we don’t have any signs outside — that’s how broke we’ve been. But you see, we still didn’t give up. You can feel the spirit. I can feel it when I’m talking about it and thinking about it. How God just put tears in my eyes. I wouldn’t have known this. I didn’t see it. I didn’t even see it coming. We are onto something that’s really cool.”

Join the Orange Mound Gallery for “Forms Meet Functions: The Trash to Treasure Live Painting Studio Art Show,” Friday, March 10th, 5-7:30 p.m. The gallery is located in the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center next to TONE, 2232 Lamar Ave. 

“Forms Meet Functions: From Trash to Treasure” will be on display at U of M’s Fogelman Gallery, September 1st-October 1st. The opening reception is September 1st, 6-9 p.m.

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News Blog News Feature

Data: Wolfchase Has Most Active Covid Cases, Germantown Most Vaccinated

Credit: Shelby County Health Department

Over the last two weeks, Wolfchase has had the most active Covid-19 cases; the area around Mike Rose Soccer Complex has had the most tests, and Germantown is Shelby County’s most vaccinated city. 

All of this is according to geographic data from the Shelby County Health Department. The data are updated each week and are meant to give rough estimates of the Covid-19 situation here.   

Credit: Shelby County Health Department, as of Tuesday, October 12th

Covid-19 numbers continue to fall in Shelby County, passing Delta-surge milestones on the way down. The seven-day rolling average for new cases fell below 200 this week after a surge high of more than 800. The number was 186 Monday. The number of new daily cases was 94 Tuesday, the first time the figure has been below 100 in many weeks. 

As of Tuesday morning, the health department was aware of 2,299 active cases of the virus in Shelby County. Of those, 666 were in children aged 0-17. 

Credit: Shelby County Health Department

Children (0-17) had the most active cases per capita than any group in Shelby County, according to the data, at 371 per capita. The 35-44 age range had the second highest active cases here at 369 per capita. 

Credit: Shelby County Health Department

More tests have been given in the 38125 ZIP Code in the last two weeks (see above) than anywhere else in Memphis, according to health department data. The area is just west of Collierville and is roughly bordered by the Mike Rose Soccer Complex, Wyndyke Country Club, Riverdale Road, and the Tennessee/Mississippi border. 

In that ZIP Code, 7,456 Covid tests have been given per capita in the last two weeks. The area is followed closely in testing numbers by 38103 (Downtown), 38104 (Midtown), and 38105 (North Downtown and the Pinch District) combined. There, 7,059 Covid tests have been given per capita in the last two weeks. 

Credit: Shelby County Health Department

Over the last two weeks, active Covid cases have been more prevalent in the northern part of the county (see above), in North Memphis, Millington, Arlington, and more. However, the Wolfchase area (38133) is the hottest spot on the map with 382 active cases. Orange Mound (38114) has had the fewest active cases in the last two weeks with 122 cases reported there. 

Credit: Shelby County Health Department

Germantown is the vaccination champion of Shelby County (see above), the data show. The vaccine rate for 38139 and 38138 since shots have been available is 74,864.1 per 100,000 people. The city has just barely out-vaccinated residents of East Memphis, though. There, (in 38117) 67,9111 residents per 100,000 have been vaccinated. Ranking third, is Collierville with 67,018 residents per 100,000 being vaccinated.  

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News News Blog

Organizers of Orange Mound Revitalization Plan Seek Community Feedback

Organizers of a community-centered revitalization plan for Orange Mound are seeking resident feedback. 

The plan,  Mound Up, is a collaboration between JUICE Orange Mound and the Rhodes College Urban Studies Department that began in the spring of 2020. 

Britney Thornton, founder of JUICE, is leading the charge to create a strong resident-driven plan in order to have a say about future development in Orange Mound. 

“When people show up ready to develop, they’re not trying to wait on you to come up with your plans,” she said. “We want to be ready and in position to know what our asks are. Otherwise, we would just have to follow the lead of people who show up ready with money.” 

Thornton said the goal is to get 350 responses to the survey on the plan by the spring in order to have a finalized plan by the end of the spring. 

Thornton said the inspiration for the plan came from South Memphis’ revitalization plan, SoMe Rap. 

“They’re rallying around an actual document that they created with resident input,” Thornton said. “This isn’t something where we feel like we’re innovating. We’re just replicating and just trying to put a spin on it wherever we can to make it something uniquely signature to Orange Mound.”

Thornton said the motivation to initiate the plan came as she began to notice a shift in the market with more interest in Orange Mound properties. She feared that if there was no intervention, people in Orange Mound would be displaced. 

“We want to be ready and in position to know what our asks are.”

“So I knew we had to do something,” Thornton said. “Mound Up is a proactive approach for us to be able to be in position to show up in these conversations knowing what it is that we want and know what direction we want to go in.”

Displacement is prone to happen, Thornton said, but the goal is to prevent the culture of Orange Mound from being completely altered.

“Our whole premise is that we want to work with people to develop people,” Thornton said. “We don’t want to displace people.” 

Thornton, who is from Orange Mound, said it’s always been her desire to move back into the neighborhood. But she said she doesn’t want to sacrifice any of her expectations. 

“I want the house that I want, the look that I want, and the amenities in the community that I want,” Thornton said. “It’s been a real fight to advocate for the things that I personally want to see in my community. I have to go to neighboring communities often to access the amenities that I seek.”

Thornton said the neighborhood needs a spectrum of options in housing, amenities, and common community spaces. 

“To be as great as we can be, we need to see more options,” Thornton said. “Those options need to scale down to meet people where they are and also scale up to be able to offer attractive options for people who want to come here.”

Austin Harrison, adjunct professor at Rhodes, is leading the course that is working with Juice to bring the plan to fruition. 

The courses began last fall, introducing students to Orange Mound and the needs of the neighborhood. Topics included housing, community development, and the history of systemic racism — “why and how Orange Mound looks the way it does and Chickasaw Gardens looks the way it does.”

With the help of community leaders, the students came up with six focus areas for the plan: housing, community health, crime and public safety, economic development, education, and cultural preservation. 

This is the second year of the project with a new class of 13 students. This year’s class is centered on crafting strategies to implement the plan, focusing on how to implement an equitable plan with community input. 

Throughout the process, Harrison said community engagement is a key part of the plan’s success. 

“Engagement isn’t static for us,” Harrison said. “It’s something that we’ll continue to do. We think when you’re working relational and not transactional, there isn’t just an event that you call engagement and you check that box and move on. We’re always working side by side.”

It comes down to ownership, Harrison said. If residents in the neighborhood don’t see themselves in the plan, they aren’t going to fully support it. 

“If community members don’t feel like they own the plan or it’s something they had a say in, it’s going to make implementing it almost impossible,” Harrison said. 

When the plan is complete, Harrison said he would love to have the support of local government, but the plan will move forward and be enacted whether there is official adoption of it or not. 

“We’re not asking for it,” Harrison said. “It’s not ‘can you let us implement this?’ It’s more of ‘this is what Orange Mound sees for their community.’ We’re telling government officials, developers, and outside actors looking to work with Orange Mound, these are the rules of engagement.’”

“If community members don’t feel like they own the plan or it’s something they had a say in, it’s going to make implementing it almost impossible.”

Harrison hopes that the plan will lay a framework for other neighborhoods to replicate. 

“It’s a framework for holding stakeholders accountable,” Harrison said. “It’s also a framework for residents to take control of their neighborhoods. We want residents to take control of the narrative and of who is casting the vision for where they live.” 

As the first neighborhood built by African Americans for African Americans, Orange Mound has a rich history that Thornton and Harrison hope is reflected in the plan. Harrison said he’s never interacted with a community that has such pride. That’s why cultural preservation is one of the project’s six focus areas. 

“It may seem odd to some other planners to include cultural preservation as a priority, but I don’t think that’s an option in Orange Mound,” Harrison said. “A through line throughout the process is preserving the culture and keeping legacy residents at the forefront of our planning. That’s what’s  missing from a lot of neighborhood redevelopment plans.” 

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Cover Feature News

Black Arts Rising: A New Generation of Arts Organizations is Poised to Transform Memphis

BLP Film Studios partners (l-r) Cecilia Barnes, Jason Farmer, and Carolyn Henry (Photo: Courtesy KQ Communications)

Memphis is a city of innovation — from rock-and-roll to self-service grocery stores, FedEx to Gebre Waddell’s Sound Credit software, that fact is undeniable. It’s also a city known for Black arts, in myriad forms. Now, three local Black-led organizations adept at marrying art and innovation, BLP Film Studios, Tone, and Unapologetic, aim to make Memphis a beacon in the South. In doing so, they’re making the city a better place.

The Road to Whitehaven

Jason Farmer’s journey to arts entrepreneur started simply enough. In 2008, he took his son Jason II to see the first current-era Marvel movie, Iron Man. “He started saying, ‘I want to be a filmmaker,’” recalls Farmer. “As a parent, you think that’s going to be a quickly passing thing, but he stuck to it. He started to make little sets at the house. We bought him a camera, and he started to film his sister acting out roles.”

Farmer decided he needed to figure out how to support his son’s ambitions, but since his background is in military and law enforcement, he knew nothing about the movie business — or even where to begin. “I posted on social media that I needed someone to reach out to me who may be in a film space, and a friend, who I hadn’t seen in a number of years, reached out to ask what it was that I needed. I told her what my dilemma was, and she started to send me out to various independent film projects, to various agencies and film festivals. And that’s what started the journey.”

Jason II’s passion for filmmaking inspired his father Jason Farmer to start BLP Film Studios. (Photo: Courtesy KQ Communications)

Now, Jason II is a film student at Morehouse College, and Farmer is spearheading BLP, an ambitious project to create one of the largest film production facilities in the South right here in Memphis.

Farmer is not the first person to try to kickstart a homegrown film and television industry here. In 1929, one of the earliest sound films in history was filmed in Memphis. Director King Vidor’s Hallelujah was a musical with an all-Black cast, which introduced many people to authentic gospel and blues. Modern filmmaking in Memphis can be traced back to the establishment of University of Memphis’ film department and the creation of Marius Penczner’s 1982 monster noir, I Was a Zombie for the F.B.I. In 1989, Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, filmed entirely in the then-moribund South Main neighborhood, became a seminal work in the independent film movement. That inspired some Memphians to see the city through Jarmusch’s eyes as a shabby chic nexus of popular culture waiting to be rediscovered. In the 1990s, homegrown auteur Mike McCarthy made three psychotronic films by the skin of his teeth. Meanwhile, the city played host to its first major Hollywood productions in decades: the John Grisham adaptations, The Firm and The Rainmaker, and Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flynt. In 2000, an upstart-film festival called Indie Memphis found its first star in Craig Brewer, who gained attention in Hollywood with the pioneering digital film The Poor & Hungry and then fought for four years to produce Hustle & Flow in his adopted hometown. The aughts brought more big productions, such as the Oscar-winningWalk the Line and 21 Grams.

But after the 2008 financial crisis, things changed. Hollywood productions became much more reliant on state-level tax incentives; in the South, Georgia and Louisiana offered more generous deals than Tennessee. In 2010, Brewer’s remake of Footloose, which was originally written to be set in rural West Tennessee, was lured away to Georgia. The nascent Memphis film industry essentially collapsed, as experienced crew members departed for the greener pastures of Atlanta. Local filmmakers continued the indie tradition of creating daring works on shoestring budgets, but the city would not host another major production until 2019, when NBC filmed the TV series Bluff City Law here.

That’s the environment Farmer found himself working in — and trying to change. “I’m not a creative,” says Farmer. “I started to look at it from a business aspect. What was the business case for the Memphis film industry — or lack thereof? What were those challenges?”

One big problem has always been a lack of adequate facilities. “For 30 years now, major productions in Memphis have always been able to ‘make do’ with such existing spaces as warehouses and factories — or various other empty spaces that fit the specifications for a soundstage space,” says Memphis and Shelby County Film and Television Commissioner Linn Sitler. “The minimum specifications have always been the same: 28-foot to 30-foot-tall ceilings, clear span, no windows, and non-metal roofs. Our clients look for a space that would also provide an overall quiet outside environment with lots of parking and nearby offices.”

The lack of suitable soundstages was almost a deal breaker for Bluff City Law, Sitler says. “Only at the last possible moment was a former skating rink located, which did meet the minimum soundstage requirements. The offices were still miles away. The traffic noise of Summer Avenue was right outside, but it was the best we could offer.”

The Atlanta area, by contrast, offers producers several full-service production facilities, including Trilith Studios, where much of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is produced, and the homegrown Tyler Perry Studios. “I spent really a lot of time doing background research on these other places,” Farmer says. “What emerged from that was, without challenges here in Memphis and in Tennessee, we had an opportunity to carve out a niche space that had really not been explored. We really needed to look at it as creating infrastructure and the supporting ecosystem that it takes to support projects. We want to go after the industry, as opposed to going after one-off projects.”

Farmer says his research suggested that the situation was far from hopeless. “We came up with a model that allowed us to use our natural asset, which is the great cultural history here. … At the same time, there were some things that were starting to happen with the industry trying to be more attentive to marketing to Black and brown audiences.”

For decades, Black productions were a hard sell in Hollywood. Conventional wisdom in the white-dominated boardrooms was that white people would not see Black films, and that African-American casts could not sell a picture in vital overseas markets like China. This thinking willfully ignored counter-examples, like the immensely successful films of Tyler Perry. Recent breakthroughs, such as the success of 2016 Best Picture winner Moonlight and Jordan Peele’s Get Out, have exposed conventional wisdom about race in Hollywood as myth. Earlier this year, Craig Brewer’s Coming 2 America, which features an all-Black cast led by Eddie Murphy, became Amazon Studios’ biggest hit ever, driven by huge international interest, particularly in Africa. Black films, Farmer says, are good business. “There have been a number of studies that have supported the argument, most recently the McKinsey & Company study that said the industry is leaving about $10 billion a year in potential revenue on the table by not backing productions that are reflective of the communities we live in.”

It’s not enough to just market to BIPOC audiences. Hallelujah might have been a groundbreaking Black musical, but since King Vidor was a caucasian raised in Jim Crow Texas, it is also rife with harmful stereotypes. Many big content producers are now actively recruiting Black producers and directors to create stories that better reflect the community. “With Memphis positioned as the largest suburban minority population in the country, it makes it easy for us here,” Farmer says. “We’re trying to help them answer questions around DEI — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion — and we can do it in an organic manner here in Memphis because of the community makeup.”

BLP Film Studios seeks to close Memphis’ infrastructure gap by creating a sprawling film and television production campus in Farmer’s native Whitehaven. Located just west of Highway 51 near the Mississippi border, BLP Studios will feature 12 soundstages and assorted support and administrative facilities. Farmer says the area meets the criteria of available land and easy access to air and ground transportation. “I knew that Whitehaven had a lot of untapped potential,” he says. “There were just a lot of things that, from a business standpoint, when you looked at creating a platform to attract people from around the world, made Whitehaven the obvious choice. And I had great confidence because I come from that community. Whitehaven embraces its children, so to speak.”

Orange Mound Tower as seen from below (Photo: Chris McCoy)

Orange Mound Tower Rises

Vacant for two decades, the United Equipment building is an Orange Mound landmark. From the front door of Tone’s gallery space, Victoria Jones can see the former feed mill towering over Lamar Avenue.

Jones, whose first job out of college was with Crosstown Arts, founded Tone in 2015 as The CLTV. “My goal originally was just, how do I get more Black artists into Crosstown?” she says. “But we had an opportunity to see through programming how needed it was for the rest of the city and for artists.”

Jones says Black artists have never had the freedom to create like their white counterparts, immersed in the privileged high-art world. “What does it mean for Black artists to have a touch point, to do some experimenting, to get creative outside of this kind of white space? A lot of times, when we get new spaces, we have to toe the line of perfection for fear of losing access to the space. What happens when we carve out a space where Black folks can show up authentically and fully themselves in that experimentation? We got to see that start to happen as we were doing programming at Crosstown. It just became really important to us to dig in somewhere, create a home, and build a foundation, so that artists have this touch point consistently.”

Victoria Jones of Tone (Photo courtesy Tone)

Jones’ nascent organization signed a lease on a former retail space at 2234 Lamar, where they could stretch out and mount new and daring shows and performances by Black artists. But Jones says their eyes were always on the future. “We weren’t the first for Black artists, but the lack of sustainability has caused every generation to have to start over. So we have been thinking since we started for real about what it means to sustain. What does it mean to hand this baton off to the next generation of artists? And so for us that came with property, having access to consistent space. What would that mean for generations of artists, creatives, entrepreneurs?”

The arc of urban gentrification goes something like this: Artists looking for cheap studio space move into blighted neighborhoods where they can create art, mount shows, and host events without getting the cops called on them for disturbing the peace. People who would normally avoid such places attend the events, have fun, and get used to the neighborhood. Landlords see the renewed activity in properties they had long ago given up on and encourage more artists and associated businesses to move in. Then, when a critical mass of activity is reached, they raise the rents, which makes the area unaffordable to the very people who put in the work to make it attractive again. Artists are evicted in favor of more well-heeled businesses looking to burnish their brands among young people flocking to the hip neighborhood. The poor people who lived there all along are also evicted as collatoral damage to the landlords’ rising fortunes.

IMAKEMADBEATS (Photo: Tae Nichol)

Unapologetic founder IMAKEMADBEATS says the only way to break the cycle is for the creatives to become owners, not tenants. When he tells people he grew up poor in Orange Mound, “People look at me like I survived Baghdad or something. We didn’t think anybody was fighting for us or fighting for change. Nobody cared. We were just the selected ones to go through it, the 6 percent to 8 percent that’s got to go through poverty.”

As Unapologetic’s fortunes increased, IMAKEMADBEATS says finding a permanent home in Orange Mound became an urgent priority. “Whether it was to fulfill our ideas as founding partners or to protect the neighborhood or doing our part to help establish wealth and sustainability for the community to be able to buy into, there’s so many reasons to take the longer, harder route of ownership and doing what’s necessary to become developers.”

With the successful Crosstown Concourse model as a guide, Tone and Unapologetic set out to buy the Lamar-Airways Shopping Center, where Tone’s gallery is located, but the deal fell apart at the last minute. Then Jones looked out the window and saw Orange Mound Tower. “I think as soon as we really started considering the tower as a viable option, it became the best option. It’s obviously way more work, but we can start from scratch and build a state-of-the-art campus for Black innovation, Black artists, Black culture, and Black businesses.”

With the vital assistance of Historic Clayborn Temple Executive Director Anasa Troutman, Tone and Unapologetic secured a grant from The Kataly Foundation in Lancaster, California. “She brought those funders to Memphis to introduce them to other organizations,” recalls Jones. “On their trip, they stopped by the gallery. We didn’t even go on-site. They just looked at [the tower] from the gallery, and we told them what it would mean to Black creatives, what it would mean to this community, what it would mean to Memphis as a whole. They are so dedicated to empowering grassroots, community-led organizations, as opposed to paying somebody from outside the community to come fix or save it. They empowered us to purchase the building, with the catch that we find a local match.”

The Kataly grant encouraged local donors and investors who were on the fence to join the project. “It set us up to get a funder that we had kind of warmed up, but couldn’t get them fully commit,” says Jones. “They saw someone else believe in us. It’s the domino effect that can happen with matches.”

The Orange Mound Tower development will include ample residential and commercial space, as well as a massive performance venue and incubator facilities for nascent entrepreneurs. Unapologetic will occupy a three-story office and recording-studio space.

The prospect of refurbishing such a huge space for creative reuse is daunting, but Jones says they have had nothing but encouragement from the community. “We got a chance to watch Crosstown work through some of that. Todd Richardson offered up the advice to pilot as much of it over here as we can before we move across the street. I’m talking about Memphis becoming the cultural beacon of the South. We’re actively putting those pieces in place now.”

Unapologetic and Tone celebrated the purchase with a massive Juneteenth celebration that attracted thousands to the first of what will be many concerts on the grounds of Orange Mound Tower. “If our success is any indication, every time we open our doors, people come,” says Jones. “These folks have been wanting a place to go. Our folks have been needing a home, and so to be able to offer up a home that we actually own is going to truly change the city.”

She also sees this as an opportunity to encourage more grassroots activism and local Black ownership. “Memphis is too big and too Black for us only to be one, so every move where we can kind of stretch out some and offer up space to even more folks, we’ll take it. Then just watch what happens.

“It’s going to transform the city, I believe.”

Categories
Music Music Blog

Music to Light Up Juneteenth Celebration at Orange Mound Tower

IMAKEMADBEATS (Credit: Justin Fox Burks)

Memphis Flyer readers couldn’t miss this week’s top entry in the Steppin’ Out pages, featuring the old United Equipment building standing tall in a blue sky, announcing tomorrow’s Juneteenth Family Reunion at the newly rechristened Orange Mound Tower. It will be the inaugural event for the tower and surrounding land, now slated for mixed-use development by a new partnership between Unapologetic, the music, media and fashion collective, and Tone, the Black arts and community-empowering nonprofit formerly known as the CLCTV.

Given the building’s iconic profile over Orange Mound, it’s literally a monumental moment for the neighborhood and the city of Memphis. And such a moment calls for some sonic sanctification. Accordingly, music will echo from the environs surrounding Orange Mound Tower with a tidal force, as the alliance settles in to its new home.

If you love music, click this 2019 track from AWFM, Hannya Cha0$, and PreauXX (produced by Kid Maestro) — which might well be the ultimate anthem for the remade Memphis that’s emerging this weekend — and read on.

Naturally, PreauXX, AWFM and Kid Maestro will all be on hand with beats, rhymes, and sweet musical soundscapes, along with fellow Unapologetic artists Eillo and C Major. IMAKEMADBEATS, the collective’s founder, will also perform.

But this moment is not only Unapologetic’s, and other artists will be there as well, including 91′ Co., BlueBoys and Matt Lucas. Mixed in with the live performances will be DJ sets from notable platter-spinners such as DJ Chandler Blingg, Qemist, DJ Manté and DJ Texas Warehouse.

It will be an unforgettable day to be sure, and, as noted in the Unapologetic press release, “Expect fireworks.” Whether literal or figurative, you know this crew will not fail to light up the night.

Juneteenth Family Reunion, Orange Mound Tower, 2205 Lamar, Saturday, June 19, 5-11 p.m., free.

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City Council Hopes Small Area Redevelopment Will Spark Growth

The Memphis City Council met on Tuesday, December 15th, to discuss more development in small areas that they hope will revitalize the city. The Small Community Planning and Development committee will target seven areas. Neighborhoods that will be focused on at the beginning of 2021 will be Klondike, South City, Orange Mound, White Haven Plaza, and Raleigh Town Center.

The topic was brought up because Councilwoman Easter-Thomas received some questions from her constituents asking about the benefits to the upgrades to their communities. John Zeanah, director of the Division of Planning and Development, was the primary point of contact, and presented a guidebook for the city planning process. Development will begin with smaller community changes in order to kick start the Memphis 3.0 plan. He referenced the Memphis 3.0 annual update, which was made available on December 2nd.

“This is supposed to be a framework for the future growth of the city,” said Zeanah.

Raleigh Town Center, Elvis Presley Blvd., and Raines were completed late last year. They have been working with the developers from HED and the Binghampton Development Corporation.

They consider whether a place needs an anchor business to help attract new residents. An anchor business in the Orange Mound Historic Melrose district, for example, can have a larger impact on the surrounding area.

Public involvement is recommended and encouraged. Council member Rhonda Logan stressed the need for oversight after the development has completed.

Caritas Village in Binghampton offers multiple programs for residents.

“Are there meetings to come back and look at where we are and continue to maximize the opportunity? Can we build that into the plan?,” asked Logan.

“We did not have a designation plan in the Raleigh Town Center but that is now a part of the guide,” said Zeanah. “When there is a regulatory measure, like a a change in the land use or change in zoning to be made obviously, that’s something that the follow up is on the collective us,” he said.



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Sculpture Honoring Historic Orange Mound to Go Up

Future site of scuplture


A sculpture honoring the history of Orange Mound is slated to go up at Dunbar Elementary School sometime in the spring.

Memphis-based artist Desmond Lewis was commissioned by the UrbanArt Commission (UAC) in partnership with the city of Memphis to complete the project.

The goal of the piece is to enhance the street and crosswalk improvements near Dunbar, while creating art that will “inspire youth to stride for new educational heights” and “reflect the pride and togetherness of the community.”

The project will include seating and a sculpture with handprints of students. The idea “stems from the need to recognize the rich culture of the Orange Mound Community, as well as acknowledging the important hand that the children of Dunbar Elementary have in becoming the next leaders of Orange Mound, the city of Memphis, the United States, and our World,” according to the UAC.

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The project is in step with UAC’s new mission of looking for new ways for artists and neighborhoods to collaborate to “shape and create public art together.”


Lewis with a previous sculpture he created

Before the project goes up, Lewis will conduct an “extensive” period of public engagement with Orange Mound residents, Dunbar Elementary students, and community organizations. Lewis hopes to get 300 handprints for the project, as well as a group of nominated residents who will be featured in the sculpture.

The project is funded through the city’s percent-for-art program in partnership with the UAC — an effort to create public art projects across Memphis.

Lewis was selected to complete the sculpture by an artist selection committee consisting of members of the Orange Mound Arts Council, representatives from the city’s Traffic Engineering division and Shelby County Schools, an architect, and two Memphis-based artists.

Lewis, who received a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Memphis in 2017, has had work exhibited in Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, Vermont, South Dakota, and Massachusetts.

Here, Lewis has done work in South Memphis, including signage and seating near Soulsville.

Lewis has been known to use mild steel in his work, as he correlates the invisible appearance of steel in buildings with the concealed structural importance of African Americans in the United States. Through the creation of fabricated and forged sculptures, he attempts to address race and equality, while uplifting the community.