Stansbury Publishes Book of Exclusive Photos

Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr. captures history
in new book. Courtesy photo.

Not many photographers living today have in their possession a trove of never-before-seen historic photographs of history-makers covering more than 50 years. 

Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr. does. In his newly published book titled “Through the Lens of Mark Stansbury,” the photographer captured some of the most intriguing images of notables and some not-so-famous people from the 1960s to 2010.

Published by GrantHouse Publishers (December 2021), the 132-page hardcover book is no doubt a keepsake of black and white photographs of legendary civil rights leaders, entertainers, business magnates, sports figures, politicians, educators and more. 

Jimmy Carter, Julian Bond, Lena Horne, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marin Luther King Jr., Michael Jackson, Coach Larry Finch, Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton, Benjamin L. Hooks, The Beatles, Barack Obama, James Brown, Carla Thomas, Bair T. Hunt, and others.

Dr. Shirley Raines, president emerita of the University of Memphis (2001 to 2013), where Stansbury worked as her special assistant, joins the cadre of notables in the book as well.

“Whether on assignment or with a sense of where history was being made, Mark seized opportunities to use his camera to record history or to celebrate life…,” Raines wrote.

Stansbury noted in the book’s introduction that he used several different cameras during his career to photograph his subjects: the Yashica, a Japanese-manufactured camera; the Roliflex, a high-end camera originally manufactured by a German company; and the Nikon-F 35mm, Nikon’s first SLR camera.

No matter the brand, it was Stansbury’s critical eye and his instinct for capturing history in real time that set him apart from his contemporaries. In fact, one would need a critical eye to get the best shot.

Ekpe Obioto, a musician extraordinaire known for playing the djimbe drum and kalimba (thumb piano), is aware of Stansbury’s critical eye for taking the right shot and encouraged him to publish a book of his exclusive photos.

Stansbury made Obioto a promise during a visit to M.J. Edwards Funeral Home in 2020 to pay respect to the late Fred L. Davis, a civil rights leader, politician, founder of the first Black-owned insurance company, and their friend.

“I’m going to do it,” he told Obioto. 

Stansbury said he initially thought about publishing a book a decade ago but was super busy working at the University of Memphis, WDIA AM 1070 Radio Station, where he’s been a longtime radio personality, and LeMoyne-Owen College.

Much of what Stansbury was able to do with the camera derived from his connection to the late civil rights photojournalist Ernest C. Withers, who captured racial tumult in the South. 

Stansbury was inspired. He met Withers once as a young budding photographer but decided he’d write to the noted photojournalist to ask if he could take him under his tutelage as an apprentice.

He’d worked weekends at WDIA AM 1070, the first radio station in the country with all-black programming. In 1959, the station sent him to a journalism conference at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo.

“I always wanted to go to the University of Memphis (then-Memphis State University),” he said, “but that was never to be.”

Lincoln University was the alternative because of its journalism department. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in 1960 but could no longer attend the university.

“I knew I was going to drop out and I always wanted to be in college,” said Stansbury, deciding then to contact Withers, who agreed to mentor him.

“He taught me a lot. I learned how to process film in his darkroom,” he said. “When he would go out of town, I would run the office for him. When he was in town, sometimes I would go and shoot pictures for him.”

Over lunch one day, Stansbury said Withers thought of ways to get him back in school. He said Withers talked to Thaddeus Stokes, then-editor of the Tri-State Defender, as well as AC “Moohaw” Williams and Nat D. Williams, both popular radio personalities at WDIA.

“Each one of them wrote a letter on my behalf (to the president of Lane College, the Rev. Dr. Chester Arthur Kirkendoll),” said Stansbury, who would go on to matriculate at the historically black college in Jackson, TN.

While attending Lane College, Stansbury served as a photojournalist for the Tri-State Defender, Jet Magazine, and EbonyMagazine. He would go on work as a news anchor and has been a popular gospel radio personality at WDIA for more than 60 years.

“Through the Lens of Mark Stansbury” is the photographer’s contribution to photojournalism and the world at-large.

Perhaps there’s a little of Ernest C. Withers in Markhum L. “Mark” Stansbury Sr.

The book retails for $29.95. For more information or to order copies, contact the photographer at mstnsbry@gmail.comor by phone at 901-270-3780. 

There’s Help for Alcohol and Drug Addictions

 

The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham working out of her office
in Midtown Memphis. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Roughly 400,000 people in the state of Tennessee use or abuse alcohol or drugs, which accounts for 5 percent of the population, according to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

The statistics are startling. Teens, young adults and seniors had reported using illicit drugs, including prescription opioids. But only a very small percentage get the treatment they need.

Memphians and others across Tennessee need not worry. There is help for addicts. The Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham and her business partner, Keith Henderson, are transforming lives.

Abraham is the CEO of The Healing Arts Research Training (HART) Center, a licensed facility for non-residential addictions treatment that addresses co-occurring disorders and offers counseling and alternative healing experiences. 

She is also the CEO of the non-profit Healing Hearts Foundation, which provides a “continuum of care process for individuals afflicted with substance abuse, mental health and/or co-occurring disorders.”  

Henderson is the clinical director of both.

“I love working with addicts,” said Abraham, whose life was reduced to tatters nearly 35 years ago when she herself grappled with alcohol and drugs. 

“I was an addict,” she acknowledged.

At that time, Abraham was living with her mother in Leland, Miss., about 140 miles south of Memphis following the U.S.-61 route. 

“I was really sick,” she said.

Her mother wouldn’t enable her and wasn’t going to watch her destroy her life. So, in 1986, she took immediate action and, without so much as a notice, kicked Abraham out the house.

She said, according to Abraham, “I didn't bring you into the world to watch you die on my couch,” after which Abraham replied: “I'll be gone the next morning.” 

Apparently, Abraham didn’t move quick enough, which elicited a sharp rebuke from her mother to leave the house immediately. 

“No ma'am, I mean right now!” Abraham recalls her mother saying. 

Abraham said she gathered her “frugal” belongings, jumped into her “rat trap car,” picked up a newspaper, and headed to the levee down in the Mississippi Delta.

The following morning, she perused the newspaper and stumbled upon an opportunity that would change her life forever.

It was a job at a treatment facility for a weekend counselor that included an apartment on the grounds. 

“I went and interviewed for it and got it,” she said. “I had no idea I was an addict [at that time]. It was only when God picked me up like a pawn on a chess board and put me in the treatment facility.”

Abraham realized she couldn’t keep drinking and drugging if she was going to work with addicts and participated in the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous in Greenville, Miss.

“My date of sobriety is April 17, 1987. That was the last time I had a drink or drugs,” she said. “That was the beginning of my change.”

That same year, Abraham met Henderson, who was recovering from addictions himself and working as well at the treatment facility.

“We started talking about what we wanted to do with our lives,” she said, and set up a 12-step Narcotics Anonymous program for addicts and the groundwork for The HART Center and the Foundation. 

“I knew that God had given me a reprieve,” said Abraham, now a trauma specialist in the field of addiction and mental health. 

With no prior college experience, Abraham earned an undergraduate degree at the University of Memphis and a master’s degree at the University of Tennessee College of Social Work. 

In 2005, she was conferred a doctorate at New Mexico Theological Seminary in Santa Fe, NM. Her mother and father were staunch Southern Baptists. “I got a taste of that,” she said. “Then I started studying religion when I was around 11 or 12.”

Now, Abraham, Henderson, and their multidisciplinary team are working “to transform lives and communities by integrating best practices in addiction and co-occurring disorders with cutting-edge holistic therapies that activate the heart’s inner guidance system.” 

“They're the Dream Team,” she said.

Henderson has extensive experience in the field of mental health and addiction as well. Along with Abraham, they work diligently to assist those who’re afflicted with addictions.

The HART Center, licensed in 2005, has contracted with Judge Tim James Dwyer’s Shelby County Drug Court since 2010. They work with non-violent adult offenders for a year to 18 months.

They provide non-residential services for substance abuse and mental health treatment, among others. 

The Healing Hearts Foundation, established in 2010, is funded by the Tennessee Department of Mental Health Substance Abuse Services and provides services for the Tennessee Department of Correction-Probation & Parole. 

“We can keep people up to a year or longer if they are determined to need those services and [if] we can get the funding for it through our contracts with the state,” Abraham said.

Services include traditional and specialized interventions and experiential intensives such as massage, personal training, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), breath, music, art, movement, and more. 

“We provide outpatient services in Tennessee only,” said Abraham, adding: “We’ve been blessed with all of these incredible people who've come to us for help.” 

For more information, logon to www.thehartcenter.org or www.healing heartsfoundation.net. Or contact the Rev. Dr. Jane Abraham for an appointment at 901-726-4213.

Campbell is Compelled to Feed and Clothe the ‘Forgotten Souls’

 

Stanley Campbell Sr. has been feeding and clothing
the homeless for more than 30 years. His "Forgotten Souls
Fall Festival" kicks off Thanksgiving Day.
(Photo by Wiley Henry)

Stanley Campbell Sr. has been feeding and clothing the homeless for more than 30 years. But a dream he had in 2011 was confirmation from God that he needed to do more. 

On Nov. 25 – Thanksgiving Day – Campbell expects to feed, clothe, and dispense hand sanitizer, hygiene products, socks, gloves, hats and scarfs during the 15th annual “Forgotten Souls Fall Festival” from 9 a.m. to noon.  

More than 300 homeless men, women and children benefit from Campbell’s benevolence and charity four times a year during each spring, summer, fall and winter “festival.” 

This season is no different. The homeless will find their way to the parking lot of Campbell’s House of Mtenzi at 1289 Madison Ave. in Midtown Memphis, where a chockful of necessities awaits them.

The House of Mtenzi, a word meaning artist in Swahili, is a museum of historical significance – from civil rights-era artifacts to family mementos in honor of Campbell’s mother, the late Thelma Brownlee, who bore nine children. 

Known by his nickname, “Cam Mtenzi,” Campbell refers to his large family as “Ma & 9 Mustard Seeds.” He is guided by the spirit of his mother and embraced by his siblings.  

It was his mother, he said, who taught her children to always think of people who’re less fortunate. He remembers tagging behind her to community events as early as six years old and witnessing charity and philanthropy in action.

“I saw her working in the trenches in the community [in South Memphis],” he said, “and I couldn’t help but follow my mom.” 

When Campbell managed Hardy’s Shoe Store in his early 20s, for example, he purchased up to 100 pairs of new and discounted tennis shoes with his salary and gifted them to kids in the housing projects. 

“I did this for about three years,” he said. “This was the beginning stage of me taking the bull by the horns.”

In 1997, Campbell managed Marty’s Clothing Store in the Frayser community and took a two-week vacation to experience living homeless on the street. 

“It was early November; it was cool nights,” he said. “I experienced the underground lost society of the homeless.”

After his experience, he was able to relate more to the homeless in their own world with greater understanding and empathy and do as much as he can to help mitigate their plight.

It was in 2011 when Campbell’s dream came to him as a directive of sorts to increase his commitment to the homeless. His dream may seem bizarre to some. But to Campbell, it was a calling from God.

Campbell saw himself in his old neighborhood at the top of a hill looking down. “The hill was made of dead people,” he said. “The whole landscape was made of dead people – the parking lot, the buildings. The whole city was deserted, almost.”

The sordid images of dead people were enough to jar him awake, he said, after which a voice came to him when he was fully conscious. He surmised the voice to be that of God giving him a directive. 

“The voice of The Most High said, ‘Clean it up!’” which Campbell interpreted as his mission to clean up the homeless population in Memphis. It seemed a daunting task, but not impossible given Campbell’s decades-long work in the homeless community. 

“It blew me away,” said Campbell, who first started having dreams and visions in 2008 and writing them down. This one was inscribed on his heart and in his mind, and he responded forthwith.

The “Forgotten Souls Fall Festival” is the byproduct of Campbell’s experience with the homeless population and his temerity to fulfill a dream after heeding the voice of “The Most High.”

Campbell has the will and the determination to help people who’re less fortunate, but there aren’t any grants so far to match his big heart. He does receive small donations – both monetary and in-kind – from individuals, small businesses, and organizations.  

He calls them “The Forgotten Souls Coalition.”

When hungry and homeless people are brought to Campbell’s attention, he springs into action, with or without funding, he said. Funding simply helps to defray the cost of bringing his ideas to fruition.

Either way, Campbell is driven to tend the needs of the homeless population – even if he must spend his own money. 

“They’re still our brothers and sisters,” he said. “That’s why I never stop.”

Redevelopment of Northside and Surrounding Neighborhood Draws Myriad of Suggestions

Courtney C. Jennings, senior financial analyst for 

ComCap Partners, displays a redesign of Northside High 

School and the original facade. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

Northside High School, once the anchor in the Klondike-Smokey City community, was shuttered in 2016 due to minuscule enrollment. But the sounding of the death knell did not fall on death ears.

The alumni and community residents wanted to know if plans are afoot to repurpose the beautiful and spacious orange-brick building at 1212 Vollintine Ave. that was built in 1968 for an 1,800-student body.

A nonprofit group, Northside Renaissance, Inc., has hosted several meetings over the course of months seeking input from the community prior to hosting a charrette Thursday, Nov. 11, at Perea Elementary School, formerly Klondike Elementary, Northside’s next-door neighbor.

The nonprofit and its partners provided a design update for the renovation of Northside so that residents and community stakeholders would have an idea of what is possible for the vacant school building.

Charette attendees were inquisitive. “Is this going to be a public high school?” one man inquired. The answer was no. Shelby County Schools closed Northside and most likely won’t open another one in its place.

Preliminary design concepts for the building include arts and studio spaces, technical training, retail options, healthcare access, restaurants/coffee shop, a community garden, fitness and wellness opportunities, workforce development, affordable and senior housing, and more.  

“We’re trying to take advantage of an empty building that has been vacant for five years into an asset that will benefit Klondike and the greater North Memphis community,” said Archie Willis III, founder and president of ComCap Partners.

ComCap Partners is a local development firm working for Northside Renaissance, Inc. along with other partners – Klondike Smokey City Community Development Corp., The Works Inc., Neighborhood Preservation Inc., Pyramid Peak Foundation, and others – to prevent the building from laying waste.

“The idea is to use this as an anchor to help stimulate the revitalization of Klondike,” Willis explained. “This is the biggest piece of real estate and the largest structure in Klondike.”

Other queries included the projected cost of the project and the completion date. Willis said the project would cost millions – perhaps as much as $50 million or more – and the completion date is yet to be determined.

“This is a very complicated project turning a school building into something other than a school building,” he said. “It’s a very expensive project. We’re working on a financial plan.”

Lauren Tolbert, project designer and project manager for LRK, reemphasized the potential uses for Northside as a mixed-use facility – including reactivating the gymnasium and auditorium.

LRK (Looney Ricks Kiss) is a nationally full-service architectural, planning and interior design firm located in Memphis. Northside is one of the company’s projects currently on the drawing board.

The school’s gymnasium will be an asset to the community, Tolbert said. The space could be utilized for “afterschool programs, youth volleyball and basketball tournaments.” 

The auditorium was one of the largest among Shelby County Schools. Regarding the total project, Tolbert said, “We want this to be more focused on the neighborhood that’s here.”

Iola Casey took in the information and processed it accordingly. “It’s a great plan if we can only utilize it and make it available to the people in the Klondike area,” said Casey, mother of Fyron Irby and Sheila Irby, both graduates of Northside.

“We’re the ones who watched the school go down,” she said. “We know what it has been; we know what it can be. We’d love to see it revitalized and come back to what Northside should be.”

Overall, Casey is impressed with the revitalization plan for Northside and the surrounding neighborhood where blight and decay are evident. But she is concerned about the proposed living spaces.

“With everything that will be going on…and the living quarters on the third floor…it seems like a lot of activities for senior living,” she said. “I’m kind of wondering if that’s a good idea. It’s needed, but I don’t know.”

Katherine Larsha’s focus on Northside and the neighborhood is acute. But her vision for the school and the neighborhood – where residents are grappling with poverty and their homes in disrepair – differs in scope and perception. 

A 1983 graduate, she said matter-of-factly, “We have a medical need, like physical therapy. It could be a school for nursing, CNAs (certified nursing assistant), even acupuncture.”

A neighborhood clinic is proposed, but Larsha is not exactly on the same page with the team of planners and developers, which, at the onset, began soliciting suggestions from community stakeholders like herself. 

About affordable housing, Larsha said unabashedly, “What this is is gentrification. They’re saying they are gonna make it low-income. The majority of these people – like (the) Uptown (community) is now – will not be here.” 

Pointing to a redesign of Northside’s exterior, Larsha said, “This space does not reflect the people living here now. This is what gentrification is.” 

Organ and Tissue Donations Can Save Lives

Amber Pettis (left) was fortunate to get a donated in August of 2015. 
Meanwhile, Telisa Franklin, multicultural relations coordinator for 
the Mid-South Transplant Foundation, is promoting awareness 
of organ and tissue donations to save lives.

Of the more than 106,000 people on the national waiting list for an organ, eye or tissue donation to become available, 4,000 of them are Mid-Southerners (Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi), according to the Mid-South Transplant Foundation. 

But there aren’t enough registered donors to save each one of them or to give them the ultimate gift of life. Startling statistics bear this out – and they’re rather grim, almost unimaginable.

Eighty-three percent of patients overall need a kidney. Ten will die each day while waiting on a life-saving organ; and a new name is added to the national waiting list every 10 minutes.

Promoting awareness and educating the public about the importance of organ and tissue donations can help allay one’s fear and dispel any myths and misconceptions about organ procurement and transplantation. 

At least that’s what keeps Randa Lipman at the grindstone as manager of community outreach for the federally designated organ procurement organization, which helps to facilitate the organ donation process between donor families and recipients.

“We try to educate the public about the benefits of donating so that more lives can be saved,” Lipman said. “We know in times of tragedy [that] one person can save up to eight lives with solid organs and another 75 with tissue donations.”

Amber Pettis received a kidney in August of 2015. She was 28 and reasonably healthy, she thought. A year after receiving a diagnosis of end-stage renal failure, the donated kidney was her new lease on life. 

To this day, she still doesn’t know why her kidneys failed. The doctors couldn’t figure it out, either, she said. She didn’t have pre-existing conditions, high blood pressure, or diabetes – just the onslaught of renal failure.

“I went to the doctor with what I thought was just a stomach virus,” Pettis, working in transportation as a supply chain leader, remembers. “From that appointment, I learned that I was in end-stage renal failure.”

In fact, Pettis said the day she was diagnosed, she had just made it back to Memphis after completing an out-of-town trip for her job. “I was in corporate America making a life,” she said. 

As one would expect, Pettis was shocked, devastated; her life was upside down. After being connected to a dialysis machine for a year, a matching kidney was located. It saved her life.

“I was just a young adult. I had finished college, finished graduate school,” Pettis said. “My mother was devastated…uncles, cousins. Going through that situation gave me a new appreciation for life.”

Telisa Franklin recently joined the team at MSTF to help save lives and to give others, like Pettis, hope and, in her words, “a new appreciation for life.” But she is concerned with the high rate of organ failure in the Black community. 

Data from the National Kidney Foundation are alarming: While African Americans comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 35 percent of people with kidney failure.

“I am a champion for African Americans. I want everyone to understand how important it is to give life and to give hope,” said Franklin, MSTF’s multicultural relations coordinator.

“Many African Americans have high blood pressure and what we call sugar diabetes, which, literally, contribute to having kidney issues,” she said, calling attention to the proliferation of dialysis clinics “in our communities.”

Dialysis and kidney transplants are two options available for patients grappling with end-stage kidney disease. The former can be a grueling experience for patients dialyzing at least three times a week for three hours or more.

As a minister, Franklin said it is imperative and a blessing to give life – and equates the rib that God had taken from Adam and giving it to Eve as the world’s first transplant, biblically speaking. 

She continued: “You’d never know, a heart or a kidney could extend the life of someone who may discover a cure for cancer or become the next president of the United States.” 

It’s about giving back, she said. “Why not donate your liver, kidney or pancreas instead of taking those good organs with you to the other side when someone can use them.”

What Pettis went through after the shock of end-stage renal failure forced her to depend solely on family and the community. At that juncture in her life, she didn’t have a choice in the matter. 

“My situation caught my family off guard,” she said. “Organ failure, in general, regardless of what it is…whether it's the heart or kidney…it impacts not only you but those around you.”

After her yearlong ordeal on dialysis, Pettis is a firm believer that organ and tissue donations save lives. 

“You’re have a whole new meaning [of life] when you go through what I've gone through,” she said.

LeMoyne Taps Olympian Rochelle Stevens as its Head Men/Women Track and Field Coach

Olympian Rochelle Stevens (center) was tapped by William Anderson,
LeMoyne-Owen College's athletics director, to coach the school's track
and field program. Dr. Vernell Bennett-Fairs is LOC's president.
(Photo by Wiley Henry)

Dr. Rochelle Stevens – a silver medal winner in track and field at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, and a gold medal winner in the same event at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta – is LeMoyne-Owen College’s new head men and women track and field coach.

William Anderson, LOC’s athletics director, made the announcement at the college on Oct. 28 during a news conference with LOC President Dr. Vernell Bennett-Fairs, who’d tapped Anderson in July to run the athletics department.

Former NBA head coach Lionel Hollins, recently selected as LOC’s assistant men’s basketball coach, joins Head Coach Gawen DeAngelo “Bonzi” Wells, a former NBA standout, to complete the ensemble. 

This is an awesome step “to increase our academic and athletic programs,” Bennett-Fairs said, then paid homage to Stevens: “We’re honored to have an Olympian.”

Charged with restoring LOC to its former glory, Anderson phoned Stevens in August, who mulled over the opportunity and then agreed to take on the coaching duties at the historically Black college. 

“It is an honor and pleasure to introduce our new head men and women track and field coach,” Anderson said. “We’re really excited about the spirit, the passion and the expertise she’s going to bring to start our track and field program again.”

LOC’s track and field program has been inactive since 1998. Though Stevens’ first day on the job is Nov. 8, the season kicks off in the fall of 2022. The first meet will be indoors in January 2023, she said.

 Stevens, an 11-time All-American, an NCAA champion, and a member of 8 halls of fame, was gracious in her acceptance speech and said to Bennett-Fairs: “Our goal is to make you look good.”

Bennett-Fairs hoisted both thumbs, indicating approval, then clapped.

“I’m looking forward to shaping and molding our student athletes,” the new coach said. “I have all the secret ingredients that I would love to share to help expose those athletes and let everybody know who we are.”

Stevens said she’s looking forward to the task. “We are looking forward to putting LeMoyne-Owen College on the map again,” she said.

Leonard Braxton, who coached Stevens in track and field at Morgan State University in Maryland, said Stevens is a role model and that her first time at coaching is a great opportunity for her and the school. 

“She has a lot to give. She brings enthusiasm and determination [to the job],” said Braxton, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz. “She strives for excellence. That’s how she functions.”

Braxton made a special trip to Memphis to support Stevens. Since she must rebuild the track and field program, he would advise her to be patient. “It’s not going to happen overnight,” he said.

Even so, Braxton is certain Stevens will prevail. “She has the world at her feet,” he said.

Stevens’ mother and Olympic coach, Apostle Beatrice H. Davis, is just as excited for her daughter and her opportunity to coach. Like Braxton, she believes Stevens will do a good job. 

“It’s her passion,” said Davis, who pastors Word of Life Healing Ministry. “It’s a great opportunity for her to help them and equip them in life,” she said, referring to the student athletes. “It’s a challenge, but she’s up to the challenge.”

“I have a skill-set to be able to train others. Because of my track meet and foundation. I’ve helped so many athletes with their training, with the nutritional side, the mental preparation of it,” Stevens said.

Over 30,000 athletes, she said frankly. 

To avoid a conflict, the new coach conferred with the NCAA. She got her answer: The Rochelle Stevens Invitational Track Meet has been grandfathered in since it’s been ongoing for 30 years.

“So, it would not be a conflict of interest or in violation of any NCAA rules,” she underscored.

The Rochelle Stevens Foundation, launched in 1990 to inspire and develop the next generation of track stars, will continue as well.

“I want to encourage our young people to dream and to dream big,” said Stevens. “The turning point for me [in accepting the position] was to be able to give – and to give at a higher level.” 

A product of the Orange Mound community, Stevens spring-boarded to success from Melrose High School. Her mettle was first tested on the track and field there before she blazed a path to the Olympics. 

 “I just don’t want to let my athletics director down, and the community down,” Stevens said.

Jamboree Festival and Legacy Awards Help to Keep Jimmie Lunceford Alive

If you’re a jazz aficionado, you’d know something about the late, great Jimmie Lunceford and his legacy. If you’re not familiar with the jazz master, you could learn a lot during the weeklong Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival, Oct. 24-31.

For example, Jimmie Lunceford (June 6, 1902 – July 12, 1947) was a jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader who was considered the equal of Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and Count Basie during the 1930s swing era.

Here’s another tidbit: Lunceford was an athletic instructor at Manassas High School and organized a student band called the Chickasaw Syncopators before changing the name to the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra.

The jamboree festival honors Lunceford and his contributions to jazz. The festival’s signature event – “The Jimmie Lunceford Legacy Awards: A Celebration of Memphis Music Heritage” – kicks off Sunday, Oct. 31 at the Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, 225 South Main St., in downtown Memphis.

Presented and produced by W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group, Inc., and sponsored by the Tennessee Arts Commission, the event is open to the public from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. A slate of honorees comprising the “homecoming court” will be honored for their work in the music industry.

The homecoming court includes (King) Dr. Bobby Rush, blues singer; (Queen) Bev Johnson, WDIA 1070 radio personality; (Princess) Dr. Valetta Brinson, classical, jazz, spiritual and R& B soloist; and The Temprees – (Prince) Harold “Scotty” Scott, (Prince) Walter “Bo” Washington and (Prince) Deljuan “Del” Calvin – R & B legends.

Onzie Horne Sr., noted band leader and arranger, and Florence Cole Talbert-McCleave, operatic singer, composer and music educator, will be honored posthumously as king and queen. Jasper “Jabbo” Phillips, former lead singer of The Temprees, will be honored posthumously with the group and share the title of prince.

Carla Thomas, who rose to fame in the 1960s as a breakout songstress on the Stax Records label and referred to as the “Queen of Memphis Soul,” will perform a special tribute to Horne.

In addition, percussionist Ekpe Abioto, jazz songstress Earlice Taylor, jazz artist Cequita McKennley and others will pay tribute to Lunceford in their own unique way. The legacy awards will be livestreamed at www.youtube.com/weallbetv.

Face masks are required for in-person attendance.

“It's all about bringing out African-American history and culture and our role in music, and also uplifting those elders,” said Callie Herd, vice-president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit alternative news and education organization.

But more importantly, the jamboree festival and the legacy awards are all about Lunceford and keeping his legacy alive, said Ronald C. Herd II, artist, musician and historian. 

Herd, who calls himself “Tha Artivist,” is the founder and president of the W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group, Inc. He has given much consideration to Lunceford and his legacy since 2007. 

The enthusiasm has never waned over the years, but instead caught fire in 2017 when Herd and his mother, Callie Herd, worked feverishly to elevate the jazz master’s status among today’s musicologists and jazz enthusiasts.

“When I first discovered him, I mean, it was amazing, though, that a person like this, let alone a Black man, exists with this type of mindset and abilities,” said Ronald Herd, paying homage to the jazz master.

Herd said Lunceford lived his life in service to his people and for his people – “and to be forgotten by his people was a disgrace.” The goal of the weeklong jamboree festival, he said, “is to bring him back to life.” 

Manassas High School was Lunceford’s launch pad into the world of big band orchestras. While rivaling other jazz greats at the height of his fame, Herd said, “He would always come back to Manassas to do free concerts and musician clinics.”

The Jimmie Lunceford Jamboree Festival and Legacy Awards present opportunities for Memphians of all stripes to get to know the extraordinary jazz musician whose contributions are no longer relegated to the annals of history.

The Herds have found a way to keep Jimmie Lunceford alive. 

Author Condenses 400 Years of Black Plight and Triumphs into 950-page Book

John Burl Smith's "The 400th: From Slavery to Hip Hop"

John Burl Smith hasn’t given up the fight. He’s just using a different tactic, a different course of action. Now he speaks and writes about the plight and triumphs of Black people rather than organize protest marches. 

A founding member of The Invaders, a ‘60s-era militant group boasting Black power in Memphis, Smith has cobbled together his experiences and perspective on the Black man’s journey in his new book, “The 400th: From Slavery to Hip Hop.” 

Published by Nelson & Nelson Press, LLC in July (2021), the 950-page book is perhaps Smith’s crowning achievement since joining the Black Power Movement decades ago. 

If not his crowning achievement, the book is certainly a literary feat for Smith. As with any book that traces the history of a people – as in the “400th” (1619-2019) – or major events throughout history, thorough research is required.

But first comes the idea before the story is written, which, for Smith, had been simmering ever since he was old enough to discern the way Black people are treated in this country.

“I’ve always been baffled by the fact that we as a people never had a story that seemed to explain who we were, why we were here, and why it seemed we could never change our status as a people.” 

As a child, Smith said stories that were relayed to him about his great great-grandfather were bandied around by his great grandfather, whom he’d known and talked with and, “unlike most people,” forged a relationship. 

“And the stories they told, and the way they told them [just] didn't match with the history that I was always exposed to in history books and movies and things,” said Smith, calling this a “duality” that just didn’t jibe.

While the Black Power Movement was Smith’s foray into activism, writing has become his forte, his mode of expression, and a passion that keeps him working at the grindstone. 

A blurb from “The 400th” summarizes the Black man’s plight on his meandering journey throughout history: “The unending love story of a people who fell in love with being themselves.”

Or is it the love story of a people trying to mitigate the harsh reality of pain and suffering at the hands of the white man, the book’s nemesis or antagonist? There is a villain in books of this nature.

There are pitstops in the book – from one era to the next – that leads to a modern-day art form (hip hop), which encompasses the collective experiences and sighs of being Black in America. 

Smith conveys in the book the power that Black people possess collectively, as a bloc per se, even after undergoing the torrent of slavery and grappling with age-old racism, discrimination and disparity. 

He didn’t start out with the idea of writing a book, he said, but 400 years in this country morphed into one. Why? “We needed to celebrate, commemorate all our ancestors that had given their lives and efforts to get us here,” he said. 

There is much more within the pages of this book: eight categories, Smith said, “that’s responsible for our survival.” 

• Family and Building Communities: Slaves had to build families and communities in order to survive, he said.

• Education and Communication: “We needed to be able to understand the written language,” he said, “and be able to communicate the written language.”

• Entrepreneurship and Entertainment: “Entertainment has produced more wealth for descendants of American slavery than any other enterprise,” he said.

• Political and Cultural Development: Smith said, “Politics is really the last thing we have been able to get into…because it is power in the U.S.”

“The 400th: From Slavery to Hip Hop” is a history book of sorts written with candor from a Black man’s perspective. Smith said he wrote the book for high schoolers and college students.

“My concern is to get young people to understand the level of power that they actually have,” he said.

John Burl Smith can be reached by email at jbsmith908@gmail.com.

Old Beale Street Rediscovered in New Book

The glory days of Beale Street is captured in a new 

book for posterity. 

 

Several books have been written about Beale Street, but none perhaps as concrete, definitive and thoroughly researched as “Beale Street Unforgotten: A Business and Landmarks Directory and Gallery of the 1960s Beale Street Area.”

Published by GrantHouse Publishers (2021), authors George C. Grant and Mark Stansbury gleaned from various sources a bevy of facts about the Memphis landmark – including “personalities and places” – and cobbled them together into a timeline that captures the essence of the street’s glorious past.

Grant said the idea for such a book derived from a discussion with the late Dr. Miriam DeCosta-Willis about five or six years ago. DeCosta-Willis was a scholar, author, educator, historian and Civil Rights activist.

“She was telling me about the new Beale Street and that much of the old Beale Street wasn’t there,” he said. “I said, ‘We ought to do something about it,’ and then she shared with me a history.”

Grant said DeCosta-Willis had in her possession a manuscript that she’d written and titled “The History of Beale Street from 1850 to 1950.” It was never published. 

“The family has given me permission to publish it,” said Grant, a retired university library dean, and founder, co-owner, and CEO of GrantHouse Publishers. 

Grant said he read DeCosta-Willis’ manuscript. “It occurred to me that there was a void in the information about the old Beale Street,” he said, and added: “It had all been forgotten.” 

Then he began working with DeCosta-Willis on her manuscript but felt there needed to be something to reintroduce the old Beale Street. 

Grant had published several books by DeCosta-Willis, who died in January. His interest in Beale Street had never waned.

He believed then that a thorough examination of Beale Street’s glory days was ripe for publishing – so did his coauthor, Mark Stansbury, a longtime WDIA Radio personality, retired assistant to the University of Memphis president, and eminent photographer.

Stansbury, in fact, contributed several historic photographs from the era, from his vast collection.

“I think it’s very important for the younger generation that's coming up who have not been exposed to Beale Street. Or may have been to Beale Street now, but they aren't aware of what used to be there,” Stansbury said. “The book kind of covers that.”

He added: “Back in the day when I was a going to Beale Street that much, most of the places on Beale Street were owned and run by people who look like you and me. But now it's not.” 

Grant said, “It's a critical element of history of the African American community in Memphis and the role of Beale Street in it, and I thought it just needed to be documented for young people.” 

To the connoisseurs of Beale Street and those who can trace the street back to its heyday, “Beale Street Unforgotten” is a welcome addition on library shelves about Beale Street that other authors over the years sought to capture and preserve what had been a mecca for Black people.

“Well, mine is a more thorough and detailed treatment of the whole Beale Street,” Grant said. “The other books, I think, tell a portion of the story. They all do a good job. So, I thought that I would try to give the reader a sense of the whole Beale Street from mainstream to the mansions.” 

For those who are unaware of the glory days when the street was bustling with Black pride, entrepreneurs, entertainment, and wailing bluesmen, “Beale Street Unforgotten” is a compilation of people and historic places that a younger generation should embrace for educational purposes.

“I would like to see it come back and be more inclusive of us,” said Stansbury, delineating the difference between the Beale Street of old and Beale Street today. 

Much of the iconic street – known by its monikers, “Home of the Blues” and “Birthplace of Rock n Roll” – had been a retreat for African Americans, Grant and Stansbury concluded. 

The spiral bound edition of “Beale Street Unforgotten” is priced at $20. A new hardcover edition will be available soon for $25. For more information or copies of the book, contact GrantHouse Publishers at 901-218-3135.