Cohen’s District Director was 'an Extremely Talented Administrator'

Marzie Gates Thomas conducting business in her office 
for Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional District Congressman
Steve Cohen. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

She was well respected in the community. Thanks to her upbringing, the affable Marzie Gates Thomas often paid homage to the grandmother who raised her to be humble, compassionate, and to treat people with dignity and respect.

In addition to her own inherent attributes, Thomas trusted God and never forgot the values that her grandmother, Marzie Simpson, instilled.

On June 12, Thomas died at Methodist University Hospital following a short illness. She was 72 and left behind a legacy of service that can be attributed to her faith in God, her church, her family, and her grandmother’s guidance.  

“She was indispensable to our office and to the work we do in the community,” said Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional District Congressman Steve Cohen, who first appointed Thomas in 2007 to serve as his special assistant for veterans’ affairs and community outreach.

In 2009, the congressman tapped Thomas to be his deputy district director. In 2013, she took on the role of district director. “She was so well liked by the constituents who came into the office and handled them as though she had on white patent gloves,” Cohen said.

Thomas was still on the job when her illness took a turn for the worst.

“An extremely talented administrator, she understood the district and did an outstanding job meeting my constituents’ needs because of a deep familiarity with them as a 16-year newspaper editor and publisher for The Tri-State Defender,” Cohen said.

The weekly African-American newspaper is where Robert Lipscomb first befriended Thomas decades ago when he was formerly Memphis mayor Dr. Willie W. Herenton’s director of both Memphis Housing Authority and Housing & Community Development.

“I knew Marzie for a long time,” Lipscomb said. “She was a good, kind, and decent person who never met a stranger. She was true to her roots and was just a great person. She was willing to help anybody at any time.”

Lipscomb said there was “none better” than Thomas. “I choose to remember her like she was,” he said. “She was just a wonderful person; she was uncommonly kind to everybody. She never had a bad day that I saw.”

Thomas was the youngest of two children born to Thelma and Myrial Gates on July 11, 1952. She and her brother, the late Reverend Richard D. Gates, were raised by their grandmother. Another sister, Aimee Gates, was born later.

“One of the most cherished memories is from when I was just four or five years old,” Gates remembered. “I was so eager to introduce my best friend to my big sister — as if she were my most treasured possession that I wanted to share with everyone. That’s how special she was to me.”

Thomas and her husband, the late Alonzo Thomas Jr., were special to Michael Hooks Sr. as well. What Hooks remembered most about the couple was their ability to touch the lives of people.

“She had been a real public servant. She had real talent and surrounded herself with great people,” said Hooks, a former Shelby County Commissioner and member of the famed Corner Club, where he would leisure and ham it up with Thomas’s husband and other members.

But death would befall Thomas’s husband the first month in 2024. He was the love of her life and her “best friend” throughout their 47 years of marriage. They were inseparable and raised two daughters, Marthel Ellison and Richara Thomas. They also doted on their granddaughter, Madison Ellison. 

“While my mother was widely known as a devoted servant and a respected pillar in the community, to us, she was so much more,” said Ellison, the eldest daughter. “She was the heart of our family, our beacon of hope, and the deepest source of love and strength.”

Richara Thomas said her mother was her best friend and one of her greatest teachers. “She was a true foundation of what our family was built upon. I am saddened but take joy in knowing that she is no longer suffering and peacefully in the arms of God.”

Cohen also regarded Thomas as family. “She was like a mother,” he said. “She cared for me greatly — always reaching out to see how I was and offering any help.”

While Thomas’s administrative skills were par excellent to those who knew her, she was widely known as a gospel soloist whose voice was captivating. Cohen was delighted when she sang at the opening and dedication of the Odell Horton Federal Building in 2022.

Thomas was a life-long member of the historic East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church, where she sang in the choir. She grew up under the tutelage of the famed gospel songwriter Dr. William H. Brewster and continued to serve under the leadership of Pastor Julius Beasley. 

“Although our hearts are heavy with grief, we find peace in submitting to God’s will, knowing that her true healing awaited her on the other side,” said Ellison. “She taught us never to doubt God’s plan, and above all, she was a woman of unwavering faith.”

The visitation will be held on Thursday, July 3, from 6-8 p.m., at R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home, 374 Vance Ave., Memphis, TN. 38126. The homegoing celebration is Saturday, July 5 at 11 a.m. at East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church, 1315 S. Bellevue Blvd., Memphis, TN. 38106. The interment will be in Elmwood Cemetery, 824 S. Dudley Street, Memphis, TN. 38104, immediately following the service.

Copyright 2025 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved. 

The Saga of John Amos: A Family Divided

 

John Allen Amos Jr.
(December 27, 1939-August 21, 2024

MEMPHIS, TN – The last days of John Amos’s life were fraught with discord and conflict, a far cry from his early days on the set of “Good Times” portraying James Evans Sr., who struggled to helm a poor Black family living on the fringes in a Chicago housing project.

While Amos’s portrayal of a hardworking patriarch was admirable, his children, on the other hand, have embroiled themselves in legal wrangling before and after the death of their father on Aug. 21, 2024. 

The ongoing flap between Shannon Amos and Kelly Christopher “KC” Amos has been played out in some media reports as a rivalry between siblings. But they refuse to accept such a narrative. 

John Allen Amos Jr. died of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Inglewood, Calif., at the age of 84. But his death wasn’t announced until Oct. 1 by KC, who said he was only honoring his father’s request.

“He told me not to call anybody. It was a difficult request, but it was his decision,” KC said.

“He knew she (Shannon) was going to create a very destructive media circus. He didn’t want her to know,” said Belinda Foster, Amos’s longtime assistant and publicist. 

After discovering that her father had died 45 days before his death was announced, Shannon demanded answers. She wanted to know the cause of death and hired an attorney.

“There are many questions that emerged about the nature of the care that was provided to my father in his final moments,” said Shannon, who identified Foster as a person of interest. She also mentioned Eugene Brummett, KC’s friend and college roommate. 

Shannon launched an investigation alleging that decisions were made by outside doctors, “who did not appear to have professional healthcare credentials or caregiver training.” 

She pegged Foster and Brummett as “grifters” and “super fans” who took advantage of her father, including her brother, whom she accused of elder abuse and suffering from a bipolar disorder. 

KC said elder abuse was unproven after an independent investigation was launched by Homeland Security Services, Inc., Adult Protective Services, and law enforcement agencies, and that he’s never been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder.

The hullabaloo began after KC and his father arrived in Memphis on May 10, 2023, for a luncheon on May 11 at the Memphis Health Center. The schedule included a gala at a venue, featuring Amos as the keynote speaker. 

The next day, KC accompanied his father to a press conference at The Peabody hotel to announce the actor’s role in “Hillbilly Bible,” a faith-based film produced by Memphian Marie Pizano, founder/president of MVP3 Foundation. KC was signed to direct the film in Memphis. 

At the historic hotel, both father and son were tapped as honorary duck masters. They were scheduled to leave Memphis on May 14 — Mother’s Day — but Amos complained of swollen feet. 

“When they took a closer look, immediately they decided that he needed to see a doctor…that he needed to be hospitalized,” KC said. “They transferred him directly the next day to get tested.”

Amos was admitted to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis on May 15 and was placed in ICU — not because he was gravely ill, his son said, but because bed space was temporarily unavailable. 

“He wanted to avoid the fans. He wanted his privacy,” said KC, and added that his father was eventually moved to a room. 

Shannon called for her father. Before answering the phone, Amos said to KC, who was filming the actor for a future documentary about his life, “Let’s get this over with. What is my response to this?” 

“That’s your daughter. I don’t know,” KC responded, and walked out the room.

Amos went on to explain to Shannon that he was at Baptist Hospital dealing with a couple of health issues — swollen feet and shortness of breath. “But I’m coming around,” he assured her. 

Shannon asked her father if she could speak to a nurse practitioner. He asked why. She wanted to give the hospital her contact information and told her father that she was concerned about his wellbeing.

The drama continued. On May 17, KC said he was threatened by his sister, who called the Memphis Police Department to The Peabody on allegations of elder abuse. Squad cars pulled up, he said, but the officers were friendly.

“She has called the police on me 26 times over the years making false claims and defaming my character,” he said. “She promised that she will have me buried under the jail one day.”

KC filed a report himself with the MPD, the District Attorney of Shelby County, and the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. He described a contentious relationship with his sister and believed she posed a threat to him and their father.

“I have text messages to prove it,” he said. “And for my own safety, I kept the camera rolling. I filmed everything.” 

Before the end of day on May 17, KC said Shannon sent a man from Atlanta to the hospital named Charles West, who claimed to be his father’s business manager. To avoid conflict, KC left the hospital. 

The next day, he said someone from the hospital notified him of West’s return and his attempt to coerce hospital officials into allowing him to take power of attorney over his father. 

KC was suspicious of West and believed he, too, was a threat to his father and him. His suspicions were also aroused when he learned that a woman from New Jersey named Johanna Wright had finagled the POA. 

On June 18, Father’s Day, he accused Wright of barring him, Foster, Brummett and Pizano from visiting his father. The next day, he said his father asked him to go to Westcliffe, Colo. — where both father and son were living — to retrieve his checks after closing his bank account.

Since KC was in Westcliffe, he swung by the house and noticed something was amiss. “I saw boxes,” he said. “It was like a moving operation that just started the process.” He said one of the movers offered this explanation: “We’ve been hired to clean out the house.” 

Moreover, to Amos’s chagrin, he learned that Shannon had set up a GoFundMe account asking the public to donate $500,000 for her father’s “medical care, legal expenses, and housing.” 

“He was angry and demanded that she take down the page,” KC said. “He said he didn’t need the public’s help.”

After the positive rollout of “Hillbilly Bible,” Foster said, “She destroyed the great story about John Amos coming to Memphis. It was embarrassing, outrageous.” 

Social media was buzzing with Shannon’s allegation of elder abuse and financial exploitation. But then a video of the veteran actor surfaced with him admitting that his daughter was the abuser. 

While speaking to someone by phone, purportedly to Memphis attorney Larry Parish, Amos said: “I have some ongoing issues with my daughter. She is the one that I would attribute my elderly abuse to.”

Shannon said her father had several strokes over the years and was diagnosed with dementia and global amnesia. She believed he was vulnerable to KC, whom she described as smart and manipulative.

Both Foster and KC said Amos was thoroughly tested by a noted psychiatrist in Los Angeles, Calif., and that he was not diagnosed with dementia. “This was something John wanted as a backup,” she said.

The ongoing flap between KC and Shannon continues to reverberate across social media platforms. One commenter on Instagram posted: “In times like this, families get together. It is a shame because Mr. Amos didn’t get the respect he deserves.”

“Before my father passed, we had a beautiful relationship,” Shannon said, and pointed to an online video of them in 2022 dancing happily to Luther Vandross’s signature song “Dance With My Father.”

“I think that you can see the love in that video,” Shannon said.

According to Foster, “She hadn’t seen John in over a year.”

“She was in Mexico,” KC said, “faking like she had cancer and submitted an invoice to my father for $9,000 a month for treatment. I said: ‘Man, you can’t go down that road. You’re going to end up in the poor house.’”

KC maintained that his sister had often asked their father for money, including the $1,000 he said Amos had given her on his first day in Memphis. “My father was there for both of us financially, many times,” she conceded. “But there's a big difference between asking him and stealing it.”

According to KC, it was his father’s caregiver in Westcliffe who stole his money. “They stole $670 five times every 10 minutes weekly,” he said, and contacted the sheriff to investigate. 

Another time in Westcliffe, KC said he witnessed a spat between Shannon and their father. “She opened his box where he kept his meds [reefer]. She said, ‘This is what’s wrong with you.’ He asked her to leave and filed a restraining order.” 

Shannon admitted having a “complexed and layered” relationship with her father and attributed it to generational traumas. “And so, my dad and I had done a lot of healing,” she said. “His last words to me were that he loved me.”

Still aggrieved at not having a closer relationship with her father before his death, Shannon said, “He was cut off from me and the entire family, and from everyone who was a part of his daily life and everyone who loved him.” 

TMZ (“Thirty Mile Zone”) and Extra TV, both celebrity entertainment news sources, and others, weighed in on the flap, including Shannon’s allegations that KC is bipolar and grappling with a drug problem.

“It appeared to me that my brother has struggled with mental health and drug addiction issues for many years,” she said. “At one point, after my mother passed in 2016, I stepped in to help my brother.”

The siblings were roommates once. After a year together, “I started to see signs. It appeared that he could be using again. I made the choice to move to Mexico and he made the choice to move out.”

Before the two parted ways in 2020, Shannon said she found what appeared to be a white powdery substance in KC’s car. But she did not say if she was able to confirm her suspicion. 

“But one of the things he didn't honor was an agreement that he had that if we were going to live together that he would go to rehab. He never went to rehab,” she said.

“I’ve never had a drug problem,” KC countered. “I’ve never been to rehab or any of that stuff.” He has admitted to smoking reefer with his father, who struggled with “old football injuries,” he said.

KC also accused Shannon of using drugs. A Wellness Travel Expert and Plant Medicine Ceremonialist, he said, “She was using extremely powerful psychedelic drugs” when she was in Mexico on a healing and cleansing retreat with Ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drug. 

“She told me about her first hit and that she spent three to four hours purging herself,” he said. “It's ironic that somebody who is actually doing hardcore psychedelics is making these drug accusations about me.”

KC said he and Shannon never really had a true brother and sister relationship. “She’s always been vindictive,” he said, and cited an incident in New Jersey when she called the police on him.

The incident involved their mother, Noel J. Mickelson, Amos’s first wife. A quadriplegic, KC said he built a guest house onto his home and hired a licensed caregiver named Maria Avila to tend to her daily needs.

“I tried to keep working while I was doing all this, as every man needs to work,” said KC, a filmmaker and video editor. “So, a job came up and I went to Nassau, Bahamas, to shoot a music video.” 

After landing in Nassau, KC said the caregiver called to inform him that Shannon had sent her home, called the police, and reported their mother was being abused. He flew home right away to find a note in the door from the police. 

“My sister was parked around the corner,” KC surmised, “and was hoping and praying that they would come in there and that I would be in trouble for leaving.” 

On June 19, Amos was discharged from Baptist Hospital and was admitted to the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in New Jersey. Foster believed the move was made to separate Amos from his son.

It was apparent that Amos didn’t want to remain at Kessler and made his point clear in a video of him and KC in a vehicle literally begging a woman he called “Jo” to release him from the institute. 

Was “Jo” short for Johanna Wright? 

“Jo,” however, was determined to keep Amos at Kessler, even after he asked her to revoke the power of attorney. “I can’t do that,” she said. “That wouldn’t be responsible of me.” 

“I’m not going back into the hospital,” Amos said to “Jo.” “If you do so, it will be against my will.” 

Amos left Kessler on July 2. Thirteen days later, KC was arrested in the presence of his father. He spent a couple of days in New Jersey’s Essex County Jail for allegedly threatening his sister with a gun.

“Once the prosecutors studied everything and realized there was no evidence, they threw the case out,” KC said.

The saga continues. And the ongoing flap between John Amos’s children leaves fans wondering if their fractured relationship will ever be mended.

Copyright 2025 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.

An eyewitness account of terror on Bourbon Street

 

Newlyweds Jeremy and Brittany Curtis were celebrating the
New Year on Bourbon Street in New Orleans when terror  
struck. It nearly cost them their lives. (Courtesy photo)

MEMPHIS, TN – A man’s body was contorted in a way that you wouldn’t think was humanly possible. It was a heap of mangled flesh. 

Then there was a guy on the other side of the street bleeding from his head as panic ensued all around. He was talking but laid out flat.

A woman was lying on the pavement, not moving. She was either unconscious or dead. Others lay motionless and strewn along Bourbon Street. It was a scene of human wreckage.

It was pandemonium in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Revelers moved as quickly as possible to avoid the threat of death, including Jeremy Curtis, who pushed his wife, Brittany, out of harm’s way as the white Ford pickup truck barreled their way.

“He had to have been going at least 60 mph,” said Curtis, who arrived in the Crescent City on Dec. 28 with Brittany to enjoy the festivities, the bells and whistles, leading up to the New Year’s celebration. 

A former Memphian now living with his wife and four-year-old son, Preston, on the outskirts of Washington D.C., Curtis, 33, and his wife, 34, were traumatized and now trying to cope after such a horrific experience.

Jeremy is a 2009 graduate of Fairley High School in Memphis. Brittany graduated in 2008 from Whitehaven High School. He’s a healthcare consultant; she works in public health for the government.

Their story is like other survivors who witnessed the carnage and having trouble processing it. What Curtis was focused on in that hellacious instance when “bodies were flying in the air” was that he had to save his wife.

“I pushed Brittany out the street onto the curb,” he said. “Then I stepped onto the curb myself.”

He recalled a young girl getting hit and landing right in front of him. “She and I locked eyes,” he said. “She looked so scared and I was in a state of shock.”  

Curtis said he closed his eyes to the melee and couldn’t fathom what was happening. The truck had barely missed the reveling couple and left behind a breeze that he could almost feel. 

“When I looked,” he explained, “I saw him crash into this white and orange equipment.”

There was silence afterward, Curtis said, though only for a few seconds. “We just thought it was a drunk driver at that point. We didn’t think it was, as they [FBI] called it, a terrorist attack.”

The threat had to be extinguished. “I remember seeing the police running to the truck,” he said. “The next thing we heard were two gunshots and then a bunch of gunshots.”

The driver of the pickup truck was shot and killed by the police.

Curtis did what he’d done before. After his instincts kicked in once again, he jumped on top of his wife to shield her from the gunshots. “I didn’t let her get up. I just started dragging her to this bar.”

The frantic couple wasn’t allowed to enter the bar. After being turned away, they moved quickly, he said. “We went down to the next door to a strip club called Rick’s Cabaret.”

He said management was closing the doors. But that didn’t stop the couple from pushing their way into the adult nightclub.

“I kind of forced it open and threw my wife in. Then I jumped in after that,” said Curtis, trying to keep from getting shot. “The wreck was only about ten or fifteen yards away from us.”

After forcing their way into the foyer of Rick’s Cabaret, before gaining entrance to the bar itself, Curtis made a point to check on Brittany to make sure she wasn’t shot, that she was okay.

“I’m yelling and telling them there’s an active shooter outside,” he said, assuming “they didn’t know what was going on outside.”

It was business as usual, he determined. They were still partying, still drinking, and the strippers were still stripping. They were impervious to what was happening outside on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. 

Rick’s Cabaret is a two-story establishment promoted as an upscale gentleman’s club. There are no windows on the first level, Curtis observed. “My wife and I were in the back of the club freaking out.”

He wasn’t sure if management knew what was going on. If they did, he believed, they wouldn’t have acted so nonchalant. But then someone came down from the second level “and told us that it was bad.”

At that point, Curtis said the lights popped on. “The police were at the door and told us we had to come out right now. They created a route for us with their bodies. They told us not to look back.” 

Curtis looked anyway. He noticed the carnage, the pain and suffering, when they were being rushed off Bourbon Street. They didn’t stop until they got to the Q&C Hotel and Bar New Orleans, where they were staying, about a 15-minute walk.

He described what he’d seen on Bourbon Street as a war zone, something you’d see in a horror movie. At least 14 people were killed and dozens were injured in what the FBI is calling a terrorist attack.

Jeremy and Brittany Curtis are newlyweds. They were looking forward to celebrating their first anniversary on Jan. 14. But then terror struck. What they witnessed on New Year’s Day has been unforgettable.

“We didn’t get back to our hotel until around five o’clock,” said Curtis, pinpointing the time of the attack at a little after three in the morning.

The couple has reached out to their marriage counselor for a recommendation to help them cope with the trauma they’d experienced on that bloody day on Bourbon Street. 

“She’s connecting us to one of her colleagues who specializes in trauma therapy,” Curtis said.

Copyright 2025 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.

Historical Marker Honoring Fort Pillow Massacre Vandalized

 

Vandals toppled this historical marker at Memphis
National Cemetery, which honors the U.S. Colored
Troops massacred at the Battle of Fort Pillow on
April 12, 1864. (Courtesy photo)

MEMPHIS, TN – A historical marker commemorating the “massacre” of hundreds of U.S. Colored Troops who fought in the American Civil War at the Battle of Fort Pillow in Henning, Tenn., was vandalized on Aug. 7, 2024, at Memphis National Cemetery, 3568 Townes Ave.

Dr. Callie Herd was livid when she was notified by the director of the cemetery that vandals had decapitated the marker. But then she couldn’t believe that someone would be so brazen that they would seek to destroy history.

The historical marker was erected to call attention to the colored troops who were “killed or mortally wounded” on April 12, 1864. Many of them, Herd said, were buried in more than 100 unnamed graves at the cemetery.

“I don’t know if it was unintentional or if somebody was actually trying to break it,” said Herd, an educator, senior programmer for FedEx, and vice-president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc.

The historical marker was first unveiled in 2018 during a ceremony sponsored by the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc., an umbrella organization advocating for responsible social entrepreneurism and activism via the arts, media, and education.

With support from the Memphis chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), Joe Williams, whose great-great grandfather, Peter Williams, survived the massacre, the unveiling was one of the signature events for Juneteenth that year.

Herd and her son, Ronald C. Herd II, first began honoring the victims of the Fort Pillow massacre in 2016. He is the president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc. The colored troops were lost to history until the Herds decided to tell their story.

But all is not lost. Herd solicited help to pay for a replacement marker. Shelby County Commissioner Henri E. Brooks, who represents District 7, and Commissioner Mickell M. Lowery, representing District 8, answered her call. 

“So those two raised the funds for us to redo the marker,” Herd said. “She (Brooks) didn’t think that it should be repaired, but redone.”

Herd said the people whom she had contacted were devastated at the thought of the marker getting destroyed. It was Brooks, she noted, who encouraged her to file a police report with the Memphis Police Department.

Since the damaged marker bears the seal of the Bureau of Colored Troops (1863-1867), U.S. Army Artillery, Herd filed another application, this time with the Shelby County Historical Commission at Brooks’ behest.

“By it being destroyed, it helped us to get the seal that we wanted from the start,” Herd said. “That way it’s validated as a historical landmark rather than just us doing it by ourselves.”

The language on the marker reads in part: “Eyewitnesses reported that black soldiers were killed despite putting down their weapons and surrendering in what the North deemed a massacre.”

The word “massacre” elicited a debate in some circles. Should it be used to describe many of the “179,000 African-American soldiers who fought to free the country from the scourge of slavery?” 

“It was a massacre,” Brooks contends. “If it (language) is not accurate, it’s not history.”

Herd said the replacement marker has been approved and the paperwork has been started. Someone told her, she said, that the marker will take about six or seven months to complete.

“We want to reinstall the marker on Juneteenth of 2025,” she said. 

Brooks said without reservation that if the replacement marker is damaged again or destroyed, she’d replace it again and again.

“Remember Fort Pillow” is inscribed on the historical marker in a bold font. Herd hopes the cemetery will continue to honor the U.S. Color Troops long after she’s gone.

Copyright 2024 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.

Christmas Parade in Raleigh Ushered in Holiday Spirit

Sandy Cheeks, who belted out a rap song during the 
opening of the Christmas Parade in Raleigh, mixed it up 
with young parade-goers who seemed to know the lyrics  
to her song "Booty Club."

The Raleigh Egypt Marching Band and their majorettes were
one of several marching bands and high steppers performing in
the Bluff City Christmas Parade. (Photos by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – Sandy Cheekz was in rare form Saturday (Dec. 14, 2024) morning when she belted out one of her popular songs before a bevy of listeners who braved the inclement weather and amassed along both sides of Austin Peay Highway to watch the Bluff City Christmas Parade in Raleigh.

Donning rain gear, in some cases, with a few umbrellas hoisted over their heads, men, women and children assembling near the grandstand waited patiently for the procession of parade participants to file past them in their snazzy outfits — but not before Cheekz finished singing “Booty Club.”

Lil’ Rounds, a finalist on the eighth season of American Idol and another one of Memphis’s musical sensations, performed a number herself prior to Cheekz’s cheeky rap song to kick off the Christmas parade.

“In the history of the Raleigh community, I’m the first person to plan a parade and to have them (Memphis Police Department) shut the street down,” said Dr. Telisa Franklin, the parade organizer and reputed businesswoman.

While the slight drizzle coated the parade route down Austin Peay Highway, parade-goers and the organizers refused to allow the weather to dampen their holiday spirit. Franklin said she was determined to pull it off — come what may.

“I wanted to give the community an opportunity to showcase themselves,” Franklin said. “It was everything for me. I came for the children,” she added, “which models what my theme is: ‘I Came for the Community,’ That’s what it’s all about.”

About 40 schools, organizations, businesses, ministries, clubs and more geared up for Franklin’s fourth annual Christmas parade. She rolled out the first Christmas parade in the Hickory Hill community in 2021. Parade-goers watched happily while participants strutted their wares. During the subsequent years, they were just as fervent.

This year, Memphis Mayor Paul Young lauded Franklin and her fourth Christmas parade during the ribbon cutting ceremony to usher in a new era for the Raleigh community. 

Austin Peay Highway — where the hustle and bustle of commerce along the stretch are prevalent and widespread — was once home to The Raleigh Springs Mall, just north of Interstate 40.

The enclosed mall first opened in 1971 and was once teeming with business from walk-in traffic and more. But then in the early 2000s, the mall had reached the end of its lifespan. After multiple court challenges, the city of Memphis razed the property to make room for The Raleigh Civic Center. 

Shelby County Commissioner Charlie Caswell and State Rep. Antonio Parkinson, both sponsors of the Christmas parade and both longtime community activists in Raleigh and Frayser, pointed out from the grandstand that more development is underway for the proud community.

Memphis City Councilwoman Rhonda Logan, who represents District 1 on the City Council, and Memphis City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter-Thomas, representing District 7, rounded out the list of parade sponsors.

Parkinson, representing District 98 in the Tennessee General Assembly, was one of the parade’s two grand marshals. The other one was Memphis Shelby County Schools board member Stephanie P. Love, who represents District 3.

Caswell, representing District 6 on the Shelby County Board of Commission, served as host alongside Franklin and DJ Q, a community leader and reportedly the youngest disc jockey at HOT 107.1 FM, a “Tru (sic) Hip-Hop” radio station.

Franklin said this year’s Christmas parade was just as nice or better than the other three. She said she was content just to see the eyes of the children “light up” when school bands marched, blew their horns, and thumped their drums while majorettes danced to the beat.

Also on view were immaculate corvettes and other dainty vehicles rolling slowly down Austin Peay Highway and tossing candy and other goodies to children, who ran into the street and along the sidewalk to scoop them up. 

To Franklin’s delight, the parade participants made the children’s day just a little brighter this holiday season. 

Copyright 2024 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.

Stage play conjures up memories of a once troubled life

Wanda Faye Taylor-Wilson, played by Sequoia Watson, crumbles
to the ground after smoking tainted dope. Earlier, she'd thought
about drowning her daughter, Kenisha James, in the bathtub,
played by Hailey Summerall. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – A two-hour stage play depicting the life of a once troubled woman conjured up memories that seemed all too real to Wanda Faye Taylor-Wilson, who watched herself being played by actors with grit and emotional fervor.

Written and directed by Taylor-Wilson, the play, entitled “Lord! Heal My Brokenness,” was shown Oct. 5 at Scheidt Family Performing Arts Center on the University of Memphis campus.

The stage play is a kind of biopic or an honest interpretation of Taylor-Wilson’s life — from dysfunction to topsy-turvy to a drug-laden world of dope pushing and promiscuity. 

Some scenes invoked painful memories, she said, particularly the one where her stepfather, played by Paul Vance, violently assaulted her mother, Linda Thomas, whom Angela Rogers was able to play with relative ease. 

“I was about seven years old,” recalled Taylor-Wilson, now 50. “I begged him not to hurt my mom. He started fighting her in the living room and then dragged her to the bathroom. He broke her arm after slamming the toilet seat down on it.”

Helpless to do anything other than watch in fear, the young Wanda Faye couldn’t protect her mother from her stepfather’s violent rage. “That’s when I really cried,” said Taylor-Wilson while watching the scene unfold.

“I was very emotional,” she added.

Thomas sat in the audience watching Rogers play her as a battered wife. “It didn’t bother me at all,” she said quite frankly. “That was a long time ago, and I put it in the back of my mind.”

But then while Thomas’ ex-husband was rampaging through the house in the scene and inflicting pain on her, she said, “I did all I could to protect my daughter.” Now she’s proud that Taylor-Wilson was able to let it go.

“She didn’t let it affect her life,” Thomas said. “She turned it all around.”

Indeed, but not before Wanda Faye found herself heading down a meandering path of destruction at gallop speed.

Sequoia Watson appeared in latter scenes playing Wanda Faye, the young adult, who grew up in both LeMoyne Gardens and Cleaborn Homes public housing, returned to the ‘hood, and grappled with homelessness. 

Then she started selling drugs, night clubbing, drinking, battling addiction, running afoul of the police, and got pregnant. “I smoked dope up until the ninth month with both of my daughters,” she said unabashedly.

Wanda Faye’s life was topsy-turvy, had gone completely off the rail. Then she found God at 21. That scene was called “Hope Changes Everything.”

Watson said she had one month to remember her lines. “I got the script a month before the play,” she remembered. “It was challenging. I’d never played a huge role, but I pushed my way through it.”

She’d had roles in several plays before Taylor-Wilson had asked her to join the cast. “Wanda said I was the perfect person to play her as an adult,” said Watson, 37, an educator, author, coach, professional model and dancer, and a businesswoman. 

“I felt honored,” she said. “I just wanted to deliver the message.”

A total of 35 cast members delivered the message — each one playing their part in telling the whole story of young Wanda Faye’s struggle to survive and succeed against the odds.

Kenisha James, her oldest daughter, will never forget the bathtub scene. She’d heard her mother speak candidly about it many times before watching it play out in front of her eyes.

James was five when her mother, hearing a voice within, demanded she drown her baby. Whatever stupor had her bound surrendered to a superior spirit that led her to remove her daughter from the tub and out of harm’s way.

“I think about it often,” said James, now 35. “There’s a sense of sadness and there’s a sense of relief. Anybody would feel sad knowing that a parent had thoughts of killing them.”

She continued: “But then I’m relieved that she didn’t throw away her life. If she had, she wouldn’t be able to continue impacting lives like she’s doing at the shelter. Her legacy would have ended earlier.”

Taylor-Wilson is the president/CEO of Ladies in Need Can Survive, Inc., a 501(c)3 transitional home for troubled women who, like her former self, struggled with drugs, homelessness, and trauma.

Proceeds from the play benefited LINCS.

“You don’t have to stay in your trauma,” said James, a licensed esthetician and owner of a spa and wax studio in Clarksville, TN. “If my mom didn’t have a desire to be better, my sister and I wouldn’t be our best selves.”

Both James and her sister, Charmecia James, 30, had bit parts earlier in the play and watched it from the audience once they’d finished.

Taylor-Wilson, who is married to Derrick Wilson, said there is a way out of trauma. “I feel that sharing my story will provide hope to individuals who may be going through what I went through.” 

YWCA grateful for $100,000 truckload of goods

 

Dr. Pam Chatman (left), the CEO of BossGiving,
nd Gwendolyn Turner, who runs a Memphis
YWCA shelter, show off some of the items — 
more than $100,000 worth — that Chatman
donated to the facility. Photo by Wiley Henry

MEMPHIS, TN – A local women’s facility recently received a generous donation of household items from Amazon and electronics worth more than $100,000 — thanks to BossGiving, a philanthropic organization.

Delivered by an 18-wheeler in early April, the sizable haul was unloaded at the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) of Memphis, where survivors of domestic violence are given a safe place to stay unbeknown to their abusers.

The donation also includes support for a Women Crisis Transportation Assistance program.   

“All that I tried to do and wanted to do was help victims of domestic violence,” said shelter coordinator Gwendolyn Turner, whose initial plan to start her own shelter was nixed due to extenuating circumstances. 

But a silver lining would eventually materialize in the form of a key position at the facility.

“God so fixed it that He laid it right here in my hand. Everything that I wanted to do is right here,” said Turner, now in a better position to help women on the lam from their abusers.

More help would arrive, however, after a visitor touring the facility suggested that Turner get in touch with Bolivar County, Miss.-native Dr. Pam Chatman, the CEO of BossGiving.

During a tête-à-tête, Turner and Chatman found common ground. Both women love God, both had overcome domestic violence, and both resolved to help others take back their lives.

“We started talking about the goodness of the Lord,” said Chatman, and decided to bless Turner for what she’s doing at the facility and thank her for helping those who cannot help themselves.

Like Turner, Chatman grappled with a form of domestic violence. “For 17 years of my life, I was degraded every day. So why not be a blessing to women that are going through to say, ‘Look at me. Look what God has done for me.’”

Chatman said God cleaned her up and changed her life. “Then He gave me a gift of speaking to tell my testimony,” she said. “I’m truly honored today to do the Lord’s work.” 

A retired news director who last worked for WABG-TV in the Mississippi Delta, Chatman promised God that if He’d remove her tormentor, she’d continue to serve Him for the rest of her life.

She kept her promise after serving 25 years altogether in television. “About 10 or 15 years, we’ve been giving,” she said. “We started out small and now we have graduated to this large scale: $100,000 trucks [filled with a plethora of items].”

BossGiving, a non-profit, is supported with private funds, including support from the Community Foundation of Northwest Mississippi.

The donation to the YWCA is part of BossGiving’s mission to empower and uplift communities by providing “nutritional and essential items needed to support a selective spectrum of women and children.”

Memphis is the first leg of a national tour, said Chatman, also known as “Boss Lady.” Next month it’s Atlanta, GA, then Dallas, TX. From there it’s Alabama and back to Knoxville, TN.

“The journey that I will continue to take every day of my life is all about giving, all about serving,” said Chatman. “I started out using my own money buying 18 wheelers to give to small communities that didn’t have grocery stores, that have high numbers of poverty, that had a lot of low-income families with children.

“I’m from the Mississippi Delta. We’re talking about poverty. I wanted God to use me so I may be able to help people on a large scale,” she said. “We do clothes. We do trucks of food. We do household items.”

To determine who gets help, Chatman said she works a lot with child protection services, a lot with counties and supervisors, youth courts, and other nonprofit agencies that deal with families and children.

“These are seeds, and God is going to do exceedingly and abundantly what you have planted in this administration,” Karen Todd, a YWCA board member, conveyed to Chatman. 

“We are so grateful.”