Chrysti Chandler plans new home for the Young Actors Guild

The advance students of the Young Actors Guild performed at the April 4th
Foundation's 19th Annual Commemorative Awards. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Chrysti Chandler stood in the back of the room and looked on approvingly while her young dance troupe was performing at the April 4th Foundation’s 19th Annual Commemorative Awards at the Hilton Hotel in Memphis.

This was one of the dance troupe’s finest moments and more than entertainment filler on the program that evening. It was symmetry and poetry in motion. Their precise moves were imbued with the spirit of the ancestors.

“I think they did a great job,” said Chandler, basing her opinion on the applause from the audience and numerous positive comments that were posted on social media platforms.

The venue was one of many for Chandler that showcases the talent and creativity of the members of the Young Actors Guild (YAG), a nonprofit dance and theatre academy she founded 28 years ago.

Chrysti Chandler is the group's founder and
artistic director. (Photo by Sabrina Norwood)

YAG Community Arts is located at 619 North Seventh St. in Memphis. There are two satellite locations: 1926 First Commercial Dr. N. in Southaven, Miss., and 1391 Ferguson St., also in Memphis.

YAG has performed at hundreds of venues in the Mid-South and before prominent individuals since its inception. The impact that YAG has had in the community has touched over 10,000 youth, according to the group’s website.

In 2021, Chandler will be preparing to move YAG’s complete operation into the old Memphis Fire Station No. 22 at Lamar and Pendleton after the building is converted into studio and dance spaces.

The building will be christened the Harriet Performing Arts for Children.

“It will be named after Harriet Tubman (the abolitionist who freed more than 300 slaves),” said Chandler. “We’re planning to break ground in six months and complete it in the next two years.”

There will be space for artists to practice their dance moves and a lobby as well. “I don’t know the seating capacity right now,” she said, adding: “We will do workshops so they (youth) can do their own work on stage.”

After the “Harriet” is up and fully operational, Chandler plans to teach youth to develop, direct and produce their original plays. She wants them to learn the full gamut of production.

“Our hope is to bring in tourists so they can see the talent that we have in Memphis,” she said. “We will have other ongoing productions, but this will be coming from Memphis’ own playwrights.”

If the “pieces” are good enough, Chandler plans to enter them into festivals. She is confident that her group can measure up in talent and creativity, no matter the age bracket.

Alexandria Edwards, for example, is proof that Chandler’s performing arts group can move up to the next level. The 15-year-old breezed through the monologue at the awards program with passion and emotional fervor before the entire group started moving to the music and rhythm of gospel artist Kurt Carr’s “For Every Mountain.”

Alexandria is one of 150 kids that Chandler is training at the dance and theatre academy. “They come from everywhere,” she said, even as far away as Philadelphia, Chicago and Atlanta, when the summer camps convene.

Three of her students, she pointed out, auditioned in California and were accepted into the Debbie Allen Dance Academy Summer Intensive in Atlanta. Others have gone on to realize varying degrees of success.

In 2006, Gideon McKinney made it as a semi-finalist in Season 5 of “American Idol” before he was eliminated. In 2013, Kris Thomas, also a singing phenom, competed in Season 4 of “The Voice.” And in 2018, Gideon’s younger sister, Evvie McKinney, won the first season of “The Four: Battle for Stardom.”

“I trained them all,” said Chandler, who performed her first play, “Little Red Riding Hood,” when she was just 5 years old in the back yard of her mother’s home in South Memphis.

She converted the patio into a stage. The audience, she said, filled up the backyard. Many of them arrived from Glenview, Castalia and other neighborhoods in South Memphis. Her creativity was just beginning to blossom at that tinder age.

“The arts kept me alive,” she said. “That was my escape.”

Chandler’s group is scheduled to perform a tribute to Michael Jackson, “To Michael With Love,” on May 4, 6 p.m., at the University of Memphis Rose Theatre. This is another opportunity for them to show their teacher and trainer that they are ready for the big stage.

For more information about the Young Actors Guild, call 901-240-2103 or 662-536-6122. A capital campaign is underway to help transform the firehouse into the Harriet Performing Arts for Children. Contact Sabrina Norwood at 901-240-2103 for details.

Former sheriff and mayor pens book about his ‘legendary life’

Former Shelby County sheriff and mayor William Noel "Bill" Morris discusses his
new book, "Bill Morris: A Legendary Life," at Novel Memphis. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Jim McCarter sat quietly in a packed room thumbing through a recently published book that he’d purchased at Novel Memphis minutes before the author’s 6 p.m. book talk and signing Thursday, March 28.

While waiting on the former Shelby County sheriff and mayor William Noel “Bill” Morris to address the capacity crowd, an age-old photograph on page 181 in the book, “Bill Morris: A Legendary Life,” caught McCarter’s attention.

“That’s my picture. I had to look at it closely,” said McCarter, who’d granted Morris permission to use the vintage photograph. “I showed the picture to Bill and he said he wanted to use it in the book.”

Morris is seen interviewing the owner of Canipe's
Amusement Company in 1968 minutes after Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. was killed. (Courtesy photo)

McCarter was pleasantly surprised that Morris had actually used the photograph.

The black and white photograph captures the moment in time when a bundle – wrapped in a bedspread and containing an overnight bag, binoculars, suitcase, and the rifle that James Earl Ray had reportedly used to kill Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – was discovered at the entryway of Canipe’s Amusement Company at 424 South Main St.

Morris can be seen through the plate-glass window questioning the owner of the amusement company, Mr. Guy Canipe, which was next door to the boarding house and one street over from The Lorraine Motel on Mulberry where the shot rang out.

McCarter said he was around 17 or so when the photograph was snapped in 1968, minutes after a young sheriff Morris made the scene. McCarter would eventually become Canipe’s son-in-law after marrying his daughter.

The aforementioned photograph, along with the widely published photograph of Morris escorting the accused handcuffed assassin to jail, catapulted the young sheriff into the national spotlight.

Even so, Morris encouraged the audience to read the book rather than provide them with too many details.

The book was published by Legacies in Print on Jan. 1. It is loaded with historical accounts and information on Morris’ exploits in government – as sheriff when pandemonium erupted after Dr. King’s death, and when he was the four-term Shelby County mayor.

The book also includes Morris and community stakeholders, decision makers, pioneers and legends, including his friend Elvis Presley. Add to that Morris’ affiliations, civic involvement, and his role as an unofficial ambassador for the city of Memphis.

 “The last 60 years…there has been a lot of history,” said Morris, explaining his reasons for penning his autobiography. “Some of the history should be recorded differently than [what was covered in] the media.”

Morris pointed out that the arduous writing project began several years ago in his mind before meeting his co-writer, Darrell B. Uselton, who transcribed 268 recordings before working with Morris on his 400-plus-page autobiography.

“It was a little over two years in the process and sometime before that,” Uselton said matter-of-factly. In addition to the writing, the book is punctuated with more era photographs than the ones with Ray that made Morris a household name.

Just to give the audience even more of a peep into the book, Morris dropped a few names, including the infamous mayor Edward Hull “Boss” Crump. Crump – “not Trump,” he joked – built a political machine that dominated Memphis and Tennessee politics for decades.

“Mr. Boss Crump was one of the most marvelous persons I ever met,” he said. “He was good to me.”

The name Richard C. “Dick” Hackett kept coming up in Morris’ discussion about his work in government. He said he and Hackett had often traveled together to bring business to Memphis and Shelby County.

“We were successful, because we worked hard,” said Morris. “We believed Memphis could be better.”

 As a result of their efforts, he added, “I think the community is working better than we ever had compared to Washington.”

“Bill Morris: A Legendary Life” is an important read for those with an appetite for history and compassion for one man’s journey from Itawamba County, Mississippi, to Memphis, where his enduring legacy is anchored.

He eventually raised himself up from the depths of adverse poverty to become an important figure in the political and historic annals of Memphis and Shelby County.

“It’s the best I can do to tell the truth,” Morris said. “You can’t write an autobiography unless you tell the truth.”