Tag: Walter Bailey

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Politics Politics Beat Blog Politics Feature

Walter Bailey Portrait to be Unveiled at NCRM

On Tuesday, one of the icons of both Shelby County government and civil rights history will be with be honored with a portrait-unveiling ceremony at the National Civil Rights Museum. Hosts for the occasion, which will take place at 1:30 p.m., will be Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and Shelby County Commission chair Mickell M. Lowery.

The portrait of Bailey  to be unveiled was painted by Memphis native Carl Hess, an artist whose other subjects include President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bishop T.D. Jakes, and a series commissioned by Tyler Perry for his sound stages in Atlanta.

Mayor Harris had this to say about Bailey:  “Icon, innovator, and trailblazer are some of the words that describe Walter L. Bailey, Jr. Commissioner Bailey is the epitome of excellence and has set a path for how leaders in this county should fight for justice and equality for all. I am thrilled to honor someone who I consider to be a mentor, political leader, and, more importantly, a social justice pioneer of our time.”

Chairman Lowery said: “I am appreciative of the opportunity to honor a legend and advocate for social justice. Walter L. Bailey, Jr.’s work in Shelby County is paramount and is something that should be recognized. Mr. Bailey has set a foundation for many Shelby County Commissioners, such as myself, and I look forward to honoring him and his legacy.” 

The press release announcing the portrait ceremony summarized Bailey’s career this way: “Walter L. Bailey, Jr. was born on August 21st, 1940. After graduating from Booker T. Washington High School, Walter Bailey attended Southern University where he participated in a variety of civil rights activities organized by his brother, the late Judge D’Army Bailey. Always striving for excellence, he received his juris doctor from Southern University Law Center before starting the Walter Bailey Law Firm.

“In the courtroom, Walter Bailey earned national recognition after taking on several high-profile legal battles including efforts to desegregate Memphis schools. He also represented Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the sanitation workers’ strike of 1968. Walter Bailey’s most famous legal success, a case which reached the Supreme Court, established that law enforcement could not use deadly force when a suspect is fleeing unless his or her life is threatened. This landmark decision remains a standard for law enforcement officers today.

“Walter Bailey’s decades of elected public service began in 1971 when he joined the Shelby County Board of Commissioners. His service spanned four decades and 11 terms until his retirement in 2018, making him the longest-serving member of the board of commissioners. 

“In 2008, he received the Pillars of Excellence award from the University of Memphis Law School Alumni Chapter. In 2018, the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center, known as ‘201 Poplar,’ was renamed the ‘Walter L. Bailey, Jr. Criminal Justice Center.’ The portrait will be featured publicly at this location.”

Bailey’s brother, the late D’Army Bailey, was previously honored when the Shelby County Courthouse was renamed in his honor.

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Late Punching in the Clerk’s Race

It would not be a Shelby County election without false-flag charges being hurled by one candidate against another, or in one late-breaking case, with a non-candidate doing the accusing. 

Thomas Long

Here, not only in the 11th hour but in the 59th minute, metaphorically, is an excerpt from an election-eve Facebook post by  Javier Bailey concerning former City Court clerk Thomas Long, now running for General Sessions Court clerk with 12 other Democrats in Tuesday’s party primary.

Said Bailey:

“…Thomas Long is now and has always been a Republican. He supported most of the Republican ticket in 2018, 2016, and prior thereto. He is now running as a Democrat . This is an infiltration of the Democratic Party ranks and he is a Republican plant. I have no idea why the party is 

Jay Bailey

 not acting to remove him from the ballot. I spent close to 30 years either on the State or County Democratic Party Executive Committees. I always stood up and spoke out against candidates running as Democrats but voting as Republicans. Two years ago I led the charge against Reginald Tate for the very same reasons. So here we go again. Thomas Long should be removed and replaced as the nominee if he wins.”

At the moment, Bailey has no official party connection, but he is a former chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party’s primary board and also served on the state Democratic executive committee. To buttress his charges against Long, he cited a 2018 sample ballot that Long co-sponsored with Sidney Chism, which includes a mixed assortment of Democrats and Republicans, two of the latter being the GOP’s candidates for Sheriff and County Mayor, Dale Lane and David Lenoir, respectively. Lane would lose to Democrat Floyd Bonner Jr., and Lenoir was defeated by Democrat Lee Harris.

Long reacted energetically to Bailey’s charge, calling it “dirty politics” and claiming that his voting record in favor of Democratic candidates was perfect. He said that, after Bailey’s Facebook post appeared on Monday, he received supportive telephone calls from other candidates on the lengthy Democratic primary list for the clerk’s position.

In a later Facebook post, Bailey would endorse another candidate for General Sessions clerk, County Commissioner Reginald Milton, who has received numerous endorsements from other Democrats and, like Long, is one of the favorites in the race.

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Politics Politics Feature

Democrats Doubling Up in Primary Races

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Tennessee may be a certifiably red (i.e., Republican) state, and, indeed election results in recent years, even in Shelby County, which has a theoretical Democratic majority, have generally been disappointments to the once-dominant Democratic Party.

And the official Party itself has only been reconstituted in the county for a few months after various internal fissures and dissensions caused it to be decertified by the state party in mid-2016.

But none of that has stopped a veritable flood of would-be Democratic office-holders from declaring their candidacies for election year 2018 as the filing season gets going in earnest. Most unusually for a minority party, in fact, many of the races on the ballot this year are being contested by multiple Democratic entries.

That starts at the top of the ballot, as two name Democrats — former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and current state House minority leader Craig Fitzhugh of Ripley — are vying for the office of governor. (Even more Republicans are running: six gubernatorial candidates in all, most of them with serious networks and campaign funding at their disposal.)

Jackson Baker

Forrest fan Jenna Bernstein taking her leave

It seemed for a while that there might be a Democratic primary contest for U.S. Senator as well, until the well-backed entry of former two-term Governor Phil Bredesen convinced a promising newcomer, Nashville lawyer James Mackler, to withdraw in favor of Bredesen, whose second gubernatorial win in 2006 was his party’s most recent statewide hurrah. (At least two name Republicans — 7th District U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn and former 8th District congressman Stephen Fincher are vying for the GOP nomination.)

In any case, Democrats are also doubling up — and not just in the marquee races. There are competitive Democratic primary races at virtually every election level.

Take the case of state Senator Brian Kelsey‘s reelection bid in Senate District 31. The long-serving Germantown Republican sent out several S.O.S. emails to supporters this week informing them that he has a Democratic challenger and asking for campaign donations.

The opponent Kelsey had in mind was Democratic activist Gabriela “Gabby” Salinas, who did indeed announce her availability last week as a Democratic candidate in District 31. And she has a backstory that gives Kelsey reason for his concern. Salinas, who survived childhood cancer as a patient at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and went on to do research work herself at St. Jude, was also a survivor later on of an automobile accident that took the lives of family members.

Nor is Salinas the only Democrat seeking to unseat Kelsey. Another declared candidate for the seat is David Weatherspoon, one of several first-time office-seekers on the Democratic side.

On Monday, one of the Democratic Party’s recognized stars in Nashville, state Representative Raumesh Akbari, announced she would seek to fill the state Senate seat left vacant by Lee Harris, who is running for Shelby County mayor. And Akbari has a Democratic opponent in the primary, her House colleague, Joe Towns.

There are numerous other races on the ballot in which Democrats are competing with each other for the honor or capturing an open seat or one currently held by a Republican. One such case is the Shelby County Commission District 13 seat, a swing seat now occupied by Republican Steve Basar.

Both former Election Commissioner George Monger and political newcomer Charles Belenky are competing for that one. Monger, a former boy wonder who became a music manager at 15 and ran for the City Council at 18, declared his candidacy over the weekend, while Belenky turned up as a citizen critic of a purchasing contract at the commission’s regular public meeting.

And where a seat is traditionally considered Democratic, the infighting can be brisk indeed; two Democrats — Eric Dunn and Tami Sawyer — are vying for the Commission District 7 seat; four seek the seat in Commission District 8: David Vinciarelli, Daryl Lewis, J.B. Smiley Jr., and Mickell Lowery; while Commission District 9, vacated this year by the term-limited Justin Ford, is being sought by no fewer than five Democrats — Edmund Ford Jr., Ian Jeffries, Jonathan L. Smith, Jonathan M. Lewis, and Rosalyn R. Nichols.

• Monday’s first county commission meeting of the year was an abbreviated affair, starting at the late hour of 4 p.m. to accommodate attendees at the well-attended funeral at Idlewild Presbyterian church of the late public figure, Lewis Donelson.

On a day when the city was visited by groups of protesters partial to the now-removed statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the commission was the site of one such protest — from one Jenna Bernstein of Tampa, who said she had come all the way from Florida to call for the expulsion from the commission of Van Turner, head of Memphis Greenspace Inc., which purchased two parks from the city prior to removing their Confederate monuments.

Bernstein’s mission received fairly short shrift, resulting only in a brief debate between Commission chair Heidi Shafer (nay) and Commissioner Walter Bailey (yea) as to the right of a non-resident to be heard. Shafer’s view prevailed.

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Editorial Opinion

Should Shelby County Raise Officials’ Salaries?

The old bugaboo of pay raises for public officials rose again at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission, and, perhaps because of the proximity in time to Halloween, enough members of the commission were spooked by the prospect of raising their own salaries and those of several other elected county officials that the proposal — actually, three separate proposals in as many formal ordinances — went nowhere.

Technically, the votes taken Monday were on second reading, and there is one more final reading to come, presumably at the commission’s next meeting, scheduled for November 13th, but nobody needs a crystal ball or consultation with either a pollster or a necromancer to see that the ordinances are doomed to defeat in two weeks’ time, as well.

In point of fact, there is a commission majority in favor of the pay raises, but the county charter prescribes that issues of this kind require a supermajority of the entire commission.

That would be nine votes, and the ordinances fell short Monday by identical votes of seven for, four against, and one abstention. The seven aye votes belonged to six of the seven commission Democrats — Willie Brooks, Walter Bailey, Justin Ford, Reginald Milton, Eddie Jones, and Van Turner — and one Republican, Steve Basar. The four naysayers were Republicans Terry Roland, David Reaves, George Chism, and commission Chair Heidi Shafer. (GOP Commissioner Mark Billingsley would later ask that his vote be added on as a fifth no.) The one abstainer was Democrat Melvin Burgess Jr., who, as a declared candidate for Assessor in 2018, might have been concerned that, as a would-be tax collector for the county, his vote would draw special attention from opponents in next year’s election.

Under the proposed pay hikes, the salary of the county mayor would rise from $142,500 to $172,000; the sheriff salary from $116,995 to $154,890, and those of county clerk, trustee, register (all now pegged at $109,810), and assessor ($110,465) to go to $126,000. The commissioners’ salaries (currently $29,100, with the chair getting $31,100) would go to a uniform $32,000.

The votes essentially fell along predictable lines, with Bailey, speaking for the Democratic contingent of aye voters, pointing out the obvious, that the cost of living was continuing to rise and wondering if the objectors were contending that the pay of officials could never rise accordingly. Roland protested with insistent righteousness that commissioners should serve the public, not themselves, and he and Reaves professed themselves open to a public referendum to change the charter and tie future raises for the affected county officials to pay raises for rank-and-file county employees. As Democrat Turner noted, that was basically a way to put things off for the present.

For the future, such a referendum is not a bad option. Though prospects for passage might be remote, they are no worse, and could be better, than the existing odds for such proposals on the commission itself. We know all the political arguments against pay raises for public officials, and we regard it as unfortunate that the arguments for them cannot be evaluated on their own merits, the same way that pay matters out in the regular marketplace are, or should be.

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Politics Politics Feature

Democratic Prospects for TN Governor. Dog-and-Pony at County Commission

In this week’s Viewpoint , Tom Humphrey, retired from the Knoxville News Sentinel, where he earned a reputation as the dean of Tennessee political writers, and now my colleague as a contributing editor of The Tennessee Journal, contributes some informed — and likely definitive — thoughts on the Republican candidates who will be vying in a 2018 gubernatorial contest which is about to get started in earnest.

As Humphrey points out, Tennessee is now about as deep-dyed red in its political sentiments as can be, and the GOP has a built-in advantage. But he also had some things to say about the two Democrats who have eyes on the Governor’s chair. For purely space reasons, these have been siphoned off from the Viewpoint and are presented here:

Karl Dean

Said Humphrey: “On the Democratic side, the minority party has a credible candidate in former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, and his credentials were enhanced by taking in $1.2 million in contributions during four months of campaigning. He paid $36,000 for a poll out of his own pocket and donated $7,000, but the rest came from others. Though he’s declared a willingness to self-fund with big bucks, it’s doubtful he could match the financial endowments of Republicans Diane Black, Randy Boyd, or Bill Lee in a general election.

“State House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, who is quite popular and respected among those who know him, is still toying with a run against Dean in the primary. And some Democrats are unhappy with Dean’s support of charter schools as mayor. But Fitzhugh is not well known outside the legislative arena, is not rich enough for major self-financing, and probably cannot raise a lot of money. (Just $12,076 in his House campaign account July 1st.)

State Rep. Craig Fitzhugh

“So Dean will likely be facing one of the Republicans in November 2018. Democrats, of course, are wishing and hoping that President Trump will have become unpopular enough by then to change the current GOP inclinations of Tennessee voters. But it doesn’t look that way today.”

Friend Tom (whose track record in making predictions is impeccable) could be right, though Dean, who spent two days in Memphis last week reinforcing old connections and making new ones, would obviously disagree.

As the ex-Nashville mayor, a self-described “moderate” who sees health care as next year’s dominant issue,  noted to the Flyer, there has been a gubernatorial pendulum swing, back and forth between Democrats and Republicans at eight-year (two-term) intervals, since the 1970s. On that calendar, it’s time again for a Democrat, and, like Dean, the last two elected governors — Democrat Phil Bredesen of Nashville and Republican Bill Haslam of Knoxville — had previously been mayors.

Humphrey points out in his Viewpoint that West Tennessee was left without a native-son gubernatorial hopeful, following last week’s presidential nomination to a federal judgeship of state Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris of Collierville, who had long been a potential GOP candidate.

That would seem to open the way to a race by Democrat Fitzhugh, a Ripley banker and an able and experienced legislative leader who, if he could get by Dean in a primary, has a combination of down-home likability and Main Street smarts that could possibly reawaken some residual Democratic sentiment in this part of the state, which until very recently produced the small-town and rural Democrats who basically ran the General Assembly.

• It was almost like a scripted TV show, with some of the lines improvised around agreed-upon themes but with the resolution of the drama known in advance.

This was the strangely harmonious meeting, Monday, of the Shelby County Commission, coming in the wake of a disputatious seven-hour marathon session a week ago, followed by a committee meeting two days later which appeared to further unravel whatever consensus had seemed to exist on the matters of a budget and a tax rate for fiscal 2017-18.

Instead of the hotly argued either/or positions of last week’s amorphous scramble, the commission Monday meeting followed a neatly Aristotelian formula of beginning-middle-end, starting with a proposal by Republican member Terry Roland of Millington to modestly amend the county budget and establish  a $4.11 tax rate that would translate into a two-cent decrease for county taxpayers.

The provisional budget previously cobbled together by the commission had called for county employees to get a pay raise of two percent. Roland’s scenario envisioned an additional one-percent raise. As formally presented later by Democrat Willie Brooks, that would add $2.6 million in expenditures, the rough equivalent of a cent’s worth on the tax rate.

JB

Commissioners Terry Roland and Eddie Jones

The commission’s GOP members had been vociferous last week on behalf of a $4.10 tax rate, and, though Republican David Reaves of Bartlett made a brief argument for that rate on Monday, he would soon enough join his party mates in acceptance of the $4.11 rate. Democrat Eddie Jones, who with other Democrats had voted last Wednesday for a $4.13 tax rate, now announced that he had discovered from talking to “constituents” that they, too, would appreciate a tax cut.

With the sole exception of Walter Bailey, who, invoking the need for “services” to combat poverty, held out for $4.13, the other Democrats — including Justin Ford, a frequent fellow traveler with the GOP who had been absent last week — quickly fell in line, and that was that.

As commission vice chair Heidi Shafer said, in gaveling a quick adjournment to the meeting, “I appreciate a commission that knows what it wants to do.” Shafer didn’t wink, but it seemed clear enough that the body’s members — either through alchemy or advance understanding — had indeed known what they wanted to do, possibly even to the point of allowing a pro forma disagreement from Bailey.

For procedural reasons, one more vote will have to be taken on the tax rate at a special called meeting on Wednesday. But, as Shafer also cautioned her colleagues, “Get here early. I don’t think that meeting will last very long.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Breaking the Lull

The period from mid-August to Labor Day has, in Memphis as elsewhere, traditionally been a lull time, politically, and so it is this year, after the conclusion of the latest vote cycle, the county general election and state and federal primaries of August 4th.

Even in an election year, public attention to politics generally goes on siesta for a few weeks before kicking up again in the stretch run of a fall election, to be held this year on November 8th.

clay maquette of suffrage statue

This is not to say that events of significance don’t happen in the meantime. Here are a few:

A labor of many years will finally be on view in its final form next Friday, August 26th, which has been designated as Women’s Equality Day, with the unveiling in Nashville of sculptor Alan LeQuire’s monument to Tennessee’s role in the ratification of the 19th, or Women’s Suffrage, Amendment.

The statue, which depicts five Tennessee suffragists involved in the effort to gain the vote for women, will be unveiled in Nashville’s Centennial Park. It is the result of years of private fund-raising efforts overseen by the Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument, Inc., a foundation whose president is Paula Casey, of Memphis. 

Casey, who has long been involved in efforts to memorialize the Tennessee suffrage movement, was editorial coordinator for The Perfect 36, a 1998 commemorative history of the Tennessee suffragist movement co-written by Janann Sherman and the late Carol Lynn Yellin, also of Memphis. 

The unveiling will take place at 11 a.m. Participants will include Mayors Jim Strickland of Memphis, Megan Barry of Nashville, Kim McMillan of Clarksville, and Madeline Rogero of Knoxville.

In addition to the unveiling, the ceremony will include special recognition of three contemporary “Tennessee Trailblazers,” the late state Representative Lois DeBerry, of Memphis, the first woman to be elected Speaker Pro Tempore and the longest-serving member of the House at the time of her death in 2013; the late Jane Eskind, the first woman elected to statewide office; and state Representative Beth Halteman Harwell, the first woman to be elected Speaker of the state House of Representatives.

• The most extended discussion at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission concerned the merits of allowing a new gravel pit to be dug by Standard Construction Company near a neighborhood area in unincorporated Shelby County. That issue was stoutly resisted by residents of the area and was eventually referred back to the commission’s land use, planning, transportation, and codes committee.

But, for the first time in recent memory, the commission managed to elect a new chairman — Melvin Burgess Jr. — by acclamation. Usually these annual transfers of the gavel involve multi-layered power struggles and require multiple ballotings before a winner is decided. Not this trip.

In fact, kumbaya was the order of the day. Outgoing chairman Terry Roland, a Republican, got a standing ovation from his colleagues and a verbal tribute from Walter Bailey, the commission’s longest-serving Democrat. In his turn, Roland, who is given to bear hugs anyway, bestowed a full-fledged embrace on successor Burgess, also a Democrat.

• The executive committee of the Shelby County Democratic Party and state party chair Mary Mancini of Nashville disagree again. The local party committee voted last week to deny former chairman Bryan Carson — accused by some of bad fiscal management, and by others of outright embezzlement — the right to claim bona fides as a Democrat. 

Mancini, who has insisted that the local party accept a modest payback agreement with Carson, countered that the party bona fides can only be lifted if one is a would-be candidate and has failed to vote in three of the five previous party primary elections.

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Cover Feature News

Woke: Was the Protest on the Bridge a Sign of Real Change to Come?

CREDIT: Brandon Dill

Stay Woke.

You may have seen the T-shirt. You may have read the phrase on social media. Those two simple words, a play on “stay awake,” have become a rallying cry for the reawakening civil rights movement that’s swept the country again since the deaths last week of two more African-American men at the hands of law-enforcement officers and the subsequent attack that killed five Dallas police officers.

Memphis got its wake-up call last Sunday night. It began with a small protest at the National Civil Rights Museum, then transitioned into a larger crowd that had gathered in the plaza area in front of FedExForum. Organized via social media by local minister DeVante Hill, the group was joined by members of Black Lives Matter and other groups and individuals, including a few tourists and Beale Street patrons who got caught up in the spirit of things.

The rally evolved into a protest march, and eventually more than 1,000 people headed north through downtown Memphis toward the Hernando de Soto Bridge, where the group managed to block all traffic in both directions on Interstate 40 for several hours.

It was a situation that could have gone wrong in a number of ways, but it didn’t, instead ending peacefully five hours later, with no arrests made and little or no property damage reported.

Interim Police Director Mike Rallings had a possible career-altering night. Early on, he took off his protective vest and engaged with the crowd and speakers repeatedly, assuring them that he understood their frustration and that he — and the city — were open to starting a dialogue toward effecting change. MPD officers were the model of restraint and patience, and peace was maintained despite several potentially tense moments during the five-hour episode.

The question now becomes: Will the protest result in any real change? Or was it just a matter of the city and police artfully allowing people to let off steam before returning to business as usual. Will Memphis “stay woke”?

Monday morning, Mayor Jim Strickland and Rallings held a press conference to assure Memphians that change would happen, or at least that communication would happen, beginning with a meeting Monday at Greater Imani Church between the mayor, the police director, ministers, and members of Black Lives Matter. 

When asked about whether there would be more tangible steps, Rallings said, “I’m here to hear the community, and then we’ll lay out the next, tangible steps.” Strickland said the meeting at Greater Imani would be one of many meetings to come with members of the community.

That first meeting turned out to be combative and chaotic, with some audience members demanding that Strickland hire Rallings as permanent police director immediately. Strickland declined to do so, saying he would allow the hiring process to play out as planned. Another community meeting was planned for July 21st.

Flyer writers reached out to city and county officials, movement leaders, protestors, and others to gauge their reactions to the events of recent days, and where they might lead. Their responses follow.

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland: “Memphis set an example for the world — of who we are and how we stand at times like these.”

Strickland said he didn’t walk onto the Hernando de Soto Bridge Sunday, because Memphis Police Department (MPD) interim director Michael Rallings had asked him to stay away. Instead, he gathered his senior leadership team at Memphis City Hall and stayed in “constant communication” with MPD and other emergency management agencies.

“To those who protested last night — we hear you,” Strickland said during a news conference Monday, “and we want to continue to hear you.” He said he’d initiated a set of public meetings around Memphis to hear from the community, and he praised Memphis Police Department interim director Michael Rallings, noting, “I hope people see why I asked him to apply for the job.” 

Brandon Dill

Michael Rallings with crowd

Memphis Police Department interim director Michael Rallings: “We have seen enough death; I’m sick of death,” Rallings said. “I don’t care where you’re from. I don’t care if you’re black or white, if you’re a Vice Lord, or a Crip, or a Gangster Disciple. We just have to bring about a change in this city. That’s what I’ve said from day one.

“Everybody has a place in and a part to play in this struggle, and it is indeed a struggle.” On Monday, Rallings called for 30 days of “no killing” in Memphis. 

Rallings described the protest as “probably the most tense situation of my 26 years in law enforcement” and that keeping the protest peaceful and ensuring the protestors’ safety was like “juggling 500 hand grenades.”

“I don’t think God put me in that situation for this to end in violence. So, I invited those young people and said, ‘let’s have a forum, let’s lay out a plan’. We can all talk about each other and yell at each other. We can ball our fist and threaten to do bodily harm. We all know how to do that. We all learn how to do that as a child, as a baby. But I’m not a baby. I’m not going to throw a temper tantrum. I’m going to try to speak peace and calm to the city and to the situation.” 

Shelby County Commission chairman Terry Roland: “I was glad to see that things ended peacefully, and I’m proud we didn’t have any violence. That’s a testament to our community. I have to hand it to our local black leaders, Pastor Norman, the police chief, and others. They did a lot to keep things from getting out of hand.

“I can understand the frustration of the marchers. Something that bothers me, though, is that a lot of those people weren’t even from Memphis. That, and they shouldn’t have blocked the roads, especially a federal highway.

“I think we just need to take a step back, take a breath. We need to quit elaborating on our differences and emphasize our similarities, show each other how much we mean to each other.”

Ninth District Congressman Steve Cohen: “Director Rallings was the star of the evening, the way he handled things. He showed a sure hand and understanding, as did many of the demonstrators. One of them, who was arm-in-arm with the director, was DeVante Hill, an intern in my office this summer. I was proud of him. The police have to use perseverance and restraint, and they did that quite well last night. We avoided injuries or other difficulties, and it ended peacefully.  

“I’ve been calling for reforms and action on the justice front for decades. We need to look seriously at reviewing policies and priorities relating to arrests and incarceration, the rate of which has been disproportionate for African Americans and negative in its impact on their community. There’s a real need to move actively toward more community policing.”

Brandon Dill

Shira Torrech, 19, protestor: “I found out about the protest on Facebook. I decided to go because I’m passionate about unity between all humans. When I got there, I saw hundreds of people gathering together — whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians. I started choking up and had to wipe away a few tears. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was in front of the police officers on I-40 the entire night. I got the chance to speak to the people of Memphis and even the police officers of Memphis. People were singing and crying together, and chanting as one. The protest was simply to allow our voices to be heard.

“The media is saying that people were acting like hoodlums because they were standing on an 18-wheeler, but in fact those people got permission to climb on top because the driver was in support of the protest. No one got hurt. No fights. We let some cars get by because of emergencies. It was the most peaceful protest.” 

Shelby County Commissioner and longtime civil rights activist Walter Bailey: “I commend those participants who were committed and sensitive to the issue of overbearing acts by police throughout the country. I was ecstatic to see that kind of commitment from this younger generation, showing their discontent with prevailing conditions.

“As a lawyer,  I’ve handled a number of shootings and other misconduct problems, but that march was more than just about the mishandling of black suspects by police officers. At its core, it was about the social fabric of racism and the frustration and discontent of those who want to struggle and see social change.  

“One important matter is black-on-black crime. We have one of the highest homicide rates in the coutry. Concern about that is widespread, almost ubiquitous among blacks. I hope this demonstration will help start an effort by community leaders — business, corporate, religious, and governmental — to pay attention and to move forward and embrace all those various concerns. The first act, it seems to me, would be to put some sort of commission in place.” 

Michael Pope, chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party: “I’m just glad it turned out peacefully. Their point was well taken. It was good that Director Rallings made such a point of acknowledging their grievances.

We need to seize the moment, engage in this process by giving these young African Americans, Latinos, and others some input. They need to become active at election time. That would be a logical continuation of what they set in motion last night. If they want change, they need to be part of the voting process.”

Brandon Dill

Executive Director of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center Bradley Watkins: “The question not being asked: Why are we so accustomed to a punitive, force-driven law enforcement that Director Rallings’ actions took us so off guard? What happened [Sunday] night should be the norm, but it took us all by surprise. And it happened without the benefit of coordination between law enforcement and protesters. It happened without highly trained professional organizers.

“In Memphis, we kind of have a backwards mentality towards civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action, in spite of our history. We think peaceful protest can never be confrontational and to be peaceful there can never be disruption. The same people who go to the civil rights museum and praise Dr. King want to chastise these young people for doing exactly the types of things he would have done.

“These people came out [Sunday] because of the economy, because of jobs, because of public transit, and housing. They’re not being listened to. Their grievances aren’t being addressed. And so many things could be enacted right now with the stroke of a pen. We could initiate racial and cultural sensitivity training for officers. The Steven Askew case could be reopened. There are a number of transparency issues, and I’m just barely scratching the surface.

“When people doubt the tactics of nonviolent direct action, remember these protesters got a meeting with the mayor and the police director. Whatever positive thing comes forward, it’s because of their disruption. I am cautiously optimistic.”

Executive Director of Just City, Josh Spickler: “This isn’t a conversation that just started. It’s a conversation that has finally gotten attention. I’m very excited about police director Rallings’ actions. I think video of him stepping out in front of those officers with their batons and shields should be shown to all the new cadets at the police training academy. Because that’s exactly what it takes. If everyone policed the way he did last night, we wouldn’t need more officers — which Mayor Strickland is still calling for.

“His response was proportional. His response was based on relationships that he made very quickly. He de-escalated based on human contact and human connection. We should be very proud, as the mayor said. But we have to translate that kind of discretion into how we handle driving offenses, which largely criminalize poverty. And into how we manage minor drug offenses, which disproportionately criminalize African Americans.

“[The police could] say to the state of Tennessee, ‘We’re not going to be the frontline in your department of safety’s war on poor people. We’re not going to do it, because our courts are overrun, because we’re suspending way too many licenses, and people have to get around. You need to come up with a new system that can self-fund. Don’t count on us to write tickets.’ Dialogue is good, but it’s time to act. These folks are right. They are excluded from the economy. They are treated differently in the criminal justice system.”

State Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris: “I’m up here in Lexington, Kentucky, at the annual meeting of the Southern Leadership Conference. A lot of the people I’m here with, legislators from 15 Southern states, have first-hand knowedge of Memphis, and we all saw the Black Lives Matter protest on television together and on Facebook, as well. I think everybody paid attention to it. There were people here from Louisiana and Texas, which were trouble spots just last week. I might have gotten a better perspective here that I would have at home.

“My basic perspective is one of pride in how the situation was handled and at least temporarily resolved. There are many steps to be taken, though, a lot of work to be done. I serve on the Crime Commission with both mayors and others, Director Rallings, Sheriff Oldham, and others, and I have been talking a lot with [Pastor] Keith Norman about how to do things differently. Keith and I raised the subject at a recent meeting of Crime Commission. We need to shift our focus from crunching numbers to the issue of what must be done for the community, in the way of showing sensitivity.”

Marti Tippens Murphy, executive director of Facing History and Ourselves: “I was heartened by what looked to be a peaceful protest and an opening for a conversation and dialogue with civic leaders and the police director. I think that is part of what Facing History has had the ability to do, to convene people in the community who may be coming at things from very different points of view and providing common ground for solving problems.

“It seems like there is a real groundswell building. My hope is that if it is a watershed moment, we have the leadership in place to be able to move from awareness to conversations to action — to really think about what it means to create a more just and inclusive community.”

Brandon Dill

Angie Ash, coordinating committee member for Black Lives Matter: “It was amazing to have that turnout from the city [Sunday]. I’ve never seen this city so unified or a turnout like that. We support any organization protesting under the banner of Black Lives Matter or any work moving us toward black liberation. Getting the attention of city officials was a success, but it doesn’t end there.

“I wasn’t able to make it to Monday night’s meeting, but I heard things got heated and the mayor wasn’t speaking to anyone directly. So there’s still a lot of work to do, and we won’t stop protesting and holding them accountable. Inter-community violence could be solved if people had their basic needs met.”

Reporting by Bianca Phillips, Chris Davis, Toby Sells, Joshua Cannon, and Jackson Baker.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Second Efforts

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The de-annexation bill that was temporarily stalled in the state Senate on Monday of this week was, as this week’s Flyer cover story (p. 14) documents, the subject of concerted resistance activity on the part of Memphis legislators, city council members, and representatives of the Greater Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce.

Many of the same legislators were part of another never-say-die effort, this one mounted by the House Democratic Caucus, which got behind an effort by House Democratic leader Craig Fitzhugh (D-Ripley) to enable a non-binding resolution for a statewide referendum on Governor Bill Haslam‘s moribund Insure Tennessee proposal.

That proposal, which would have allowed some $1.5 billion in federal funds annually to further Medicaid expansion in Tennesee, has been so far bottled up by the Republican super-majority in the General Assembly. And Fitzhugh’s resolution itself was routed off to the limbo of legislative “summer study” as a result of a procedural gambit employed by Representative Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin), who was formally ousted from his House leadership positions recently because of allegations involving improper activities involving interns and female staffers.

Memphis representatives Joe Towns, Larry Miller, and G.A. Hardaway were among those speaking on behalf of reactivating Insure Tennessee legislation at a press conference last week in Legislative Plaza.

 

• Ninth District Congressman Steve Cohen began the week as a part of the entourage that accompanied President Obama on his history-making trip to Cuba, where the president furthered the official Cuba-U.S.A. relations he reopened last year.

The trip was the second one to Cuba for Cohen, who also was part of a delegation accompanying Secretary of State John Kerry to the Caribbean island nation in 2014. The Memphis congressman obviously went to some considerable effort to get himself involved with both missions. Why Cohen’s more than usual interest in the matter?

Well, first of all, the congressman has long advocated a normalizing of relations with Cuba, which became estranged from the United States during the height of the Cold War when Cuban ruler Fidel Castro instituted what he termed a communist revolution and cozied up to the Soviet Union, then a superpower antagonist to the U.S.

Cohen has favored rapprochement and an end to the still-active trade embargo on political and economic grounds, pointing out that the Cold War, at least in its original form, is long gone and that American enterprises, in Memphis as well as elsewhere, stand to prosper from improved relations between the two countries.

And there is the fact that, when Cohen was growing up, his family lived in Miami, the American city closest to Cuba and one containing a huge number of exiles from that nation.

But there’s more to it than that —as those Memphians know who were privy to an old AOL email address used by Cohen, one that employed a variant on the name of former White Sox baseball star Minnie Miñoso, who happened to hail from Cuba.

The backstory involving Cohen and Miñoso was uncovered this week for readers of the Miami Herald by reporter Patricia Mazzei in a sidebar on Obama’s trip to Cuba.

Mazzei related the essentials of a tale familiar to those Memphians who were readers of a Cohen profile that appeared in the Flyer‘s sister publication, Memphis magazine, in 2001. After noting that the young Cohen, who had always aspired to an athletic career himself, had been afflicted by polio at the age of 5, Mazzei goes to observe: “His parents, lifelong baseball fans, took young Steve, hobbled with crutches, to see Mom’s hometown Chicago White Sox at a Memphis exhibition game. Steve made his way near the field to plead for autographs.

“That’s when a pitcher, Tom Poholsky, handed him a real Major League baseball. It wasn’t from him, Poholsky told him. It was from an outfielder who couldn’t give the boy the ball himself because this was Memphis, in 1955, and the outfielder was black. The first black White Sox, in fact.

“His name: Minnie Miñoso. A native of Perico, Cuba.”

The young Cohen was struck by the fact that Miñoso, who for obvious reasons became something of a personal idol for him, had been so inhibited by restrictions that were part of an outmoded way of life, and his lifelong emotional attachment to the great Miñoso, who died only last year, ensued.

“I learned from Miñoso about civil rights, and I learned from Miñoso about Cuba, and I learned from Miñoso to be nice to kids,” Cohen said to Mazzei, who disclosed also that the congressman had toted a Miñoso-embossed White Sox baseball cap to Cuba on the Kerry trip with the aim of getting it to current Cuban president Raúl Castro.

He brought several more such caps with him to hand out here and there on the current presidential trip.

Jackson Baker

Roasted, toasted, and pleased about it all at a Democratic fund-raising “roaster” last Saturday honoring: (l to r, seated) Shelby County Commissioner Walter Bailey, former state Senator Beverly Marrero, and former City Councilman Myron Lowery. Standing is longtime former public official Michael Hooks, who applied the barbs to Bailey. The affair was held at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Matters of Tenure on the Shelby County Commission

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

Jackson Baker

Walter Bailey

No suggestion at Monday’s regular meeting of the Shelby County Commission could have been treated with more courtesy than the request by long-serving Democratic member Walter Bailey for an ordinance to amend the County Charter so as to eliminate all reference to term limits for county officials.

And no suggestion had so little chance of passage as Bailey’s ordinance, which, on the first of three readings, gained the votes of only three members — Bailey and fellow Democrats Justin Ford and Van Turner — on the 13-member body. 

The ordinance allows for a public referendum of county voters, and that provision allowed several members to abstain from voting on the premise that they would meanwhile consult their constituents, but this was largely a face-saving mechanism for Bailey and perhaps for themselves.

The fact is, as a number of commissioners say privately, and as David Reaves said out loud on Monday, most members of the current commission would not have been able to run successfully for their seats on the body if term limits had not been imposed.

In arguing for the ordinance, Bailey noted for the record that members of Congress and the state legislature are not bound by term limits and that the imposition of them on the commission arbitrarily deprives the public of needed experience on the part of members. Bailey himself, a member of a distinguished political family that included his late brother, author/civil rights icon D’Army Bailey, is the longest-serving member of the commission and, as he put it last week in committee, where his ordinance was first vetted, maybe the longest-serving public official in the state. He won office first in 1971, has served as chairman twice, and has served continuously, with the exception of four years, from 2006 to 2010, when the charter’s then-new term-limit requirement caused him to step down temporarily.

He is now serving his second term since being returned to the commission in 2010 and faces another mandatory withdrawal from service. • More local backdrop for the 8th District congressional race: As indicated last week, a victory by Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell in the crowded Republican primary field would occasion some frenetic maneuvering on the part of the county commissioners, inasmuch as Luttrell would thereby vacate his county position, opening it up to a reappointment process.

Luttrell, if  victorious in the congressional race, would presumably resign his mayoralty sometime between the general election in November and his January swearing-in in Washington. Meanwhile, the commission would have selected a new chair in September, according to its normal schedule. And whoever is chair when Luttrell ceases to be mayor automatically becomes interim Shelby County mayor for a maximum of 45 days, after which the commission will select a new one by majority vote.

As Commissioner Mark Billingsley of Germantown reminded his colleagues with copies of a handout he distributed Monday, the county charter makes no provision for an election to fill a vacancy in the mayor’s office “until a successor is elected and qualified at the next countywide election allowed by the state election laws.” Hence, whoever is selected by the commission upon the completion of the interim mayor’s service will serve as a fully pledged county mayor until the county general election of 2018.

There is no doubt that current commission chairman Terry Roland, a Millington Republican, wants to be the next county mayor. His intentions of running for the position in 2018 have been clear for months, and, in case anyone should forget the fact, he announces it periodically during meetings of the commission. (Roland pointedly did so at last Wednesday’s committee sessions and did so again at Monday’s regular commission meeting.)

It now appears, however, that Roland sees no need to seek reappointment to a second consecutive term as commission chairman in September (as numerous commission chairs have done in the last several years, with former member Sidney Chism, a Democrat, having brought off the trick). Roland is content to allow things to take their natural course in September, with Democratic member Turner the favorite to become the next chairman.

But Roland is certain to be front and center as a candidate for appointment as mayor when the commission convenes, sometime early in 2017, to serve as a successor to Luttrell through the election of 2018. And word has it that he believes he already has most of the votes in hand to overcome other candidates, including possible opponent David Lenoir, the county trustee, who intends to run for the office in the regular 2018 election cycle. Another possible contender for the commission’s mayoralty selection would be GOP Commissioner Steve Basar, whom Roland bested for the chairmanship last year in a hastily called revote after Basar had held the position for roughly an hour.

All of this would be moot, of course, should someone other than Luttrell win the congressional race. There are five other Shelby County Republicans in the field — Basar; radiologist/broadcast executive George Flinn; state Senator Brian Kelsey; County Register of Deeds Tom Leatherwood; and former U.S. Attorney David Kustoff.

And Jackson businessman Brad Greer must be delighted at the prospect that so many Shelby Countians in the race, dividing up the local vote, creates the real mathematical possibility of his winning. (Something like that happened in the 7th District congressional race of 2002, when Kustoff, then city council member Brent Taylor, and then County Commissioner Mark Norris split the Shelby County vote, allowing for an easy victory by Marsha Blackburn of Williamson County, who still represents the 7th District.)

Outlook on Convention Delegates

Some 400 Democrats betook themselves to First Baptist Church Broad last Saturday to make themselves eligible for formal Shelby County conventions on Saturday, March 19th, that will select from this pool of eligible members the delegates to the Democratic National Convention at Philadelphia this summer.

Yes, there will be two conventions on March 19th — one to be held at First Baptist Broad that will determine the identity of the delegates and alternates who will go to Philadelphia to represent the 9th Congressional District; and another, to be held the same day in Jackson, that will determine who goes to the national convention to represent the 8th Congressional District, which takes in a generous hunk of eastern Shelby County.

At both locations, the delegates to be selected will conform to the pattern of the two districts’ voting in last week’s “Super Tuesday” presidential primary in Tennessee, with the lion’s share of delegates and alternates going to Hillary Clinton, who won the primary vote handily, and a handful going to Bernie Sanders. 

In the case of the 9th District, that would be six delegates and one alternate for Clinton, with one delegate apportioned to Sanders. In the case of the 8th, it’s four delegates for Clinton and one for Sanders. Insofar as the math permits, the delegates are apportioned, half and half, by gender.

For the record, Clinton beat Sanders statewide by a two-to-one ratio. The ratio in Shelby County, whose African-American demographic (generally very supportive of Hillary Clinton) is higher, was four to one: Clinton, 66,465; Sanders, 15,985. 

The Democratic Party’s ex post facto process for selecting delegates differs from that of the Republicans, which required would-be delegates to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to file for election on the Super Tuesday ballot on behalf of the specific presidential candidate they chose to represent. The chief vote-getters on each list became convention delegates in a ratio proportionate to how well their candidates did in head-to-head voting.

For the record, Donald Trump won 39 percent of the statewide Republican primary vote; Ted Cruz won 25 percent; Marco Rubio, 21 percent, Ben Carson, 8 percent; John Kasich, 5 percent. (Results rounded off.)

The preliminary delegate list released last week by the state Republican Party did not include the apportionment for Shelby County, but the county’s GOP primary results went as follows: Trump, 30 percent; Cruz, 29 percent; Rubio, 26 percent, Kasich, 8 percent, Carson, 6 percent, and “others,” 2 percent. (Again, results rounded off.)

If all of this appears to be a mite complicated, that’s because it is. Updates will be provided by the Flyer as they are received.

Categories
Editorial Opinion

D’Army Bailey

D’Army Bailey

Along with the sadness that came with our learning on Sunday that the great D’Army Bailey had died of cancer was, first, surprise, because the eminent lawyer/actor/author who was elected a Circuit Court judge last year for

the second time in his life, had been an active presence in the world right up until the end — participating, for example, in a spirited forum in April at the University of Memphis law school on the subject of the 1968 sanitation strike and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

But, after we had digested the reality of Judge Bailey’s passing, another more soothing thought occurred to us: If there was one factor that motivated D’Army Bailey in life, it was the twin pursuit of equality and justice, qualities that fused into a single idea in his mind, and in the mind, also, of his brother Walter, a longtime county commissioner — the two of them forming a tandem over the years dedicated to the eradication of every vestige of discrimination in either the private or the public sphere.

We took some satisfaction, then, that before he died, D’Army Bailey had seen the beginnings of final success for a cause that was important to him, and which was a continuing preoccupation for his brother Walter — the de-sanctification, as it were, of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest as a symbol of the racist past. Bailey had to know that the Memphis City Council had voted unanimously to remove the statue of Forrest on horseback from a park that no longer bore his name.

D’Army Bailey was a gentle, sensitive man, at home in any company, though his pursuit of justice had forever embroiled him in controversy. A graduate of Booker T. Washington and Clark College, Bailey migrated after graduation from Yale Law School to the San Francisco area, a hotbed of revolutionary ideas in the 1970s. Once there, he pitched into the ferment, got himself quickly elected to the Berkeley City Council and almost as quickly was subjected to a recall election that forced him out. He returned to Memphis to practice law with his brother, but the zeal to pursue human justice was still with him, and, in the course of time, that zeal became the energy that allowed him to midwife into being the National Civil Rights Museum on the Lorraine Motel site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.

Though he had ample helpers, both in and out of government, the museum was his idea, his creation, and it will be his monument to the world.

He also left for posterity two books on civil rights and charming, credible appearances in several movies, including The People vs. Larry Flynt, which was filmed here in Memphis, so we will still have traces of him in action to cherish.