Rufus E. Jones Sr. was an accomplished businessman and legislator

Rufus E. Jones Sr. (left), his wife LaVerne Jones, former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford
Sr., and Mr. Jones' mother and father, Ida Mae Crawford Jones and S.L. Jones, pose
for a snapshot inside Jones Big Star on McLemore. (Courtesy photo)

Rufus E. Jones Sr. was a relatively quiet man, but his contributions to economic development in Memphis and as a legislator in the Tennessee General Assembly spoke volumes about his life and legacy.

That was the sentiment of family, friends and colleagues who paid homage to Mr. Jones when he was eulogized on Oct. 26 at Mt. Olive Cathedral C.M.E. Church. There was an intermittent downpour that day, but not enough to deter the mourners.

Mr. Jones’ sendoff was just that important that Markhum “Mark” L. Stansbury Sr. had to be there. He knew the legislator before he was elected to the Tennessee General Assembly from District 86.

He’s also known his wife, Marvis LaVerne Jones, a member of the “Memphis State 8,” the first black students to integrate the college.

“Even though I was close to his age, he would encourage and help a lot of people,” said Stansbury, a longtime WDIA Radio personality and one of several people Mr. Jones personally helped.

Rufus E. Jones Sr.

He credits Mr. Jones, the late Speaker Pro Tempore Lois DeBerry, and former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr. for encouraging then-Tennessee Gov. Ned McWherter to hire him as his special assistant.

 “What stands out to me about Rufus Jones is his personal integrity, character and economic achievements,” said State Rep. GA Hardaway, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.

“He understood that education and economics allow you to take full advantage of the American dream,” said Hardaway, who represents District 93.

Mr. Jones advocated for African-American entrepreneurship and education, and convened “leadership to establish laws and regulations around economic development policy.”

He also was a registered lobbyist for more than 20 years.

Mr. Jones served 15 years in the House from 1981 to 1996. But he was more than just an accomplished legislator. His daughter, Dorothy D. Jones, remembers her father as a pioneering entrepreneur who served his community and loved his family.

“My family were pioneers in the early years. My father was very proud of that,” said Jones, who spoke fondly about her father and grandfather ahead of Mr. Jones’ funeral.

Her grandfather opened S.L. Jones Supermarket in the Boxtown community in 1938. After Mr. Jones graduated from Michigan State University in 1961, he took a job as a sales tax auditor for the Tennessee Department of Revenue.

He was the first African American to hold the position before following his father’s footsteps in the retail business.

After S.L. Jones expanded the Boxtown store several times, Mr. Jones and his father formed a partnership and opened a second store, Nite N Day, in the Walker Homes community in 1967. The father and son were considered one of the first multi-store supermarket owners in Tennessee.  

A third store in Midtown was opened in 1968, Jones Big Star #102. This was a franchised store. Mr. Jones later severed ties with Big Star and changed the name to Jones Supermarket.

“He fed a lot of families from our business and provided jobs,” said Jones, who started working at the store in elementary school with her three siblings alongside the store’s employees. They were paid a fair wage as well.

“Generosity is the thing that captured the man,” said Jones, putting into context her father’s work and what defined him as a public servant and pillar in the community. A good education, she was taught, is a springboard to success.

“He gave his children the best education,” Jones said, in addition to her father instilling in his children good work ethics, honesty, timeliness, excellence and service. “[And] we traveled internationally to give us a broad perspective.”

Mr. Jones’ contemporaries applauded his perspective on economics, education and as a lawmaker. They included former state senators John Ford and Roscoe Dixon, State Reps. Joe Towns Jr. (District 84) and Larry J. Miller (District 88), and U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen.

Miller said Mr. Jones was well respected in the Black Caucus and the Republican Caucus. In fact, Mr. Jones had served as chairman of the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators.

“He was able to work behind the scene in a quiet way, but at the end of the day he got things accomplished,” Miller said. “He was a visionary.”

  Jones said her father was a simple man. “My dad never sought the spotlight. But when he was in it, he shined. He beamed.”

She said her father grappled with lymphoma for 19 years. He died Oct. 20 surrounded by his family. He was 79.

Black History is prevalent in ‘Old Germantown’

Rosemary Stokes-Nelson has more than a passing interest in this house, where the
Lane family once lived in 'Old Germantown.' She would like to convert the house
into a museum 'or a historic place for African Americans.' (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Before the city of Germantown was a bustling municipality in Shelby County (Tennessee), there was “Old Germantown,” a rural area where noted black families thrived and survived the Jim Crow era.

Stories of Old Germantown will be the subject of water cooler conversations when Rosemary Stokes-Nelson and other former residents gather on Oct. 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Pickering Center, 7771 Poplar Pike, “to travel down Memory Lane.”

Julia E. Lane

Lane is an important surname in Germantown and would likely consume the conversation during “A Gathering of Friends: Growing up in Old Germantown.” The public is invited to attend.

Stokes-Nelson grew up in Old Germantown. Her father, she said, could not step into the store on South Germantown Road to purchase anything until white customers were finished shopping. That store is now The Germantown Commissary.

“I felt my daddy’s spirit and didn’t have to wait outside,” said Stokes-Nelson, sharing with a reporter the history of a bygone era when they met at The Commissary to chat and peruse an old scrapbook that once belonged to Stokes-Nelson’s former teacher, Julia E. Lane.

The invited guests would remember Old Germantown after its transformation into an urban enclave. But not as many people would have the same vivid memories that Stokes-Nelson has of Mrs. Lane.

“I was the teacher’s pet,” said Stokes-Nelson, reflecting on the fond memories that she has of Mrs. Lane, her first-grade teacher at Neshoba Elementary School in Old Germantown.

Mrs. Lane died Jan. 23, 2006. She was 96.

Stokes-Nelson said black people, like Mrs. Lane and her family, are often overlooked and their legacies seldom preserved for posterity. She said they’d left behind indelible footprints in Germantown.

“Growing up in Germantown, there have been a lot of black people that have never been acknowledged in a big way,” said Stokes-Nelson, an event planner. She intends to shed light on their contributions.

The idea of preserving the Lane family legacy, for example, didn’t hit her right away until she noticed that a tarp had been draped across the Lane house at 7606 Southern Ave., a three-minute walk across the railroad tracks from The Germantown Commissary.

Stokes-Nelson said she would routinely jog from the Lane house to New Bethel Missionary Baptist Church at 7786 Poplar Pike, where the family worshiped, when she made up her mind to inquire about the property.

The white, two-story frame house was built in 1909. There are a total of nine rooms, including four bedrooms and two baths. Mrs. Lane was the last surviving member of the family.

Stokes-Nelson learned that New Bethel, a 10-minute walk or jog from the Lane house, is the owner of the property, according to the Shelby County Assessor of Property. “They were thinking about tearing it down,” she said.

Now the house is being refurbished. The hardwood floors, sturdy framework (both inside and out) and the roof are being reinforced to provide someone with living space and a history that is just as valuable as the total appraisal for 2019: $230,100.

Other noted black families in Old Germantown are just as important to Stokes-Nelson. The names of those families, she’s sure, will resonate with former residents when they recall Old Germantown’s past at the Pickering Center. The Lane family pedigree just happens to pique her interest.

“The entire family of Lanes grew up there in the house,” said Stokes-Nelson, deriving this information and other facts from Julia Lane’s old scrapbook. She said a librarian had given her the scrapbook, believing that Mrs. Lane would want her to have it.

Mrs. Lane’s parents were Mary Rankins (b. 1878) and Jeff Lane (b. 1866), who married in 1891. Their six children – Minnie, Joseph, Johnnie, Robert, Irene and Julia – were raised in the house. 

The scrapbook documents the Lane’s historical journey and stunning revelations about the family. Mrs. Lane’s grandmother, Molly Rankins, was a slave on the Callis Plantation in Virginia and relocated with her owner to Germantown.

Her great-grandmother was a slave too. Ironically, Mrs. Lane’s father, Jeff Lane, would end up hauling bales of cotton in a covered wagon drawn by a team of mules from the Callis Gin in Germantown to Front Street in Memphis.  

“They (Lanes) owned all the land from Southern to Poplar Pikes,” Stokes-Nelson said. “None of the children had children, so the property was portioned out, and some of it was given to New Bethel Church.”

Stokes-Nelson initially wanted to raise funds to save the Lane house. That idea was scrapped when she found out that New Bethel Church had secured the property. She was hoping to convert the house into a museum – or a historic place for African Americans in Germantown.

Historic Avery Chapel AME Church closes after 156 years of service

Avery Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church celebrated family and friends
day before closing its doors after 156 years of service. At the pulpit is the Presiding
Prelate of the 13th Episcopal District, the Right Rev. Jeffery N. Leath; the Rev.
Lula Martin Sanderson (at Leath's left), the church's pastor; and the Rev. Beverly
A. Darden, the interim pastor. (Photos by Wiley Henry)

Avery Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) is steeped in history. Founded by Black Union soldiers during the Civil War, the church has survived 156 years.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the august journalist, educator and anti-lynching crusader, once worshiped and taught Sunday school for young men at the original site. This fact was highlighted in her personal diary and published in 1995 as “The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells.”

On Sept. 29, the doors to the age-old church opened for the last time to a capacity crowd who gathered for friends and family day to pray, to worship in song, to proclaim the word of God, and to celebrate their enduring legacy.

“We want to turn over the keys with pride and happiness,” said the Rev. Beverly A. Darden, assistant to the Presiding Prelate of the 13th Episcopal District, the Right Rev. Jeffrey N. Leath.

The Right Rev. Jeffrey N. Leath said the district will make
a decision on what to do with Avery Chapel AME Church
once the building is closed.

“My heart is in Avery. I have been associated with Avery for 50-plus years,” Darden said. She grew up in the church and married her husband there. Her children were baptized at the church as well.

“It’s hard,” she said.

Darden was assigned to Avery Chapel after the pastor, the Rev. Lula Martin Sanderson, took a sabbatical earlier this year.

“Since I’ve been here, we have had four deaths since January,” said Darden, a native Memphian who’d spent time in Washington D.C. before moving back to Memphis. “I told the bishop that I would stand in the gap.”

She thought she’d come back to Avery Chapel to lend a helping hand.

Roughly a dozen members were worshiping in the nearly vacant sanctuary, said Darden, feeling a little nostalgic and sentimental now that Avery Chapel has been ordered closed.

“The congregation had experienced decline for really decades,” Leath, the presiding bishop, explained. “They moved from their original site from downtown [Memphis] sometime ago. The new site just hasn’t worked for them.”

Leath pointed out that the church’s demise was due in part to an aging congregation and an inability to attract younger members. Such demographics had set off an alarm at the district level years earlier.

Those who worshiped to the end still subscribe to the church’s motto: “God Our Father, Christ Our Redeemer, the Holy Spirit Our Comforter, Humankind Our Family.” A.M.E. churches in the area have extended invitations to the displaced members to join them.

Avery Chapel had been the mother church of the West Tennessee Conference since its founding and the third A.M.E. church in the entire state at that time. Located at 882 E. Trigg Ave., the third and final location, the church is nestled in the South Memphis community.

Leath said the church hierarchy will decide how to dispose of the building. He isn’t sure when that will happen.

Floyd Harrison Jr., 81, had been a longtime member and church trustee. He said his mother and grandmother once worshiped at Avery Chapel. So did his daughter. Now he is contemplating a move to one of the other A.M.E. churches.

“I have been a member of Avery Chapel since junior high school,” said Harrison, a retired educator. “I came to Avery when it was located at 145 S. Fourth St. That was in 1950.”

 Harrison’s brother, Alfred Motlow Sr., had been a longtime member of Avery Chapel as well. In fact, the 83-year-old, also a retired educator, had served dutifully for decades. He had been a steward of the church.

The brothers could be described as anchors with deeper roots in the church than most congregants who’re still alive. Respectively, they tended the needs of the pastor and maintained the church.

Worshiping at the church for the last time conjured up sentimental feelings from within them and the other members as well.

“I’m saddened,” said Harrison, the keeper of Avery’s historic legacy. “It’s been my church and my family’s church all of my life. I’ve known the adults and the young people at the church.”

He said the aging adults eventually succumbed to death and the void was too difficult to fill. The youth, however, worshiped elsewhere. And the death knell at Avery Chapel began ringing.

The remaining congregants had been faithful. Darden, however, said she’d seen their pain, their anguish.

“They’re tired,” she said.