Activist Georgia King Only Thought About Helping Others

 

Activist Georgia King stands before a large-scale photo
of striking sanitation workers carrying "I AM A MAN"
signs in front of Clayborn Temple A.M.E. Church.

MEMPHIS, TN – One of the biggest fights that Memphis activist Georgia Anna King was involved in was with Memphis Housing Authority (MHA), a federally-funded housing agency.

Never one to shrink from a fight, the longtime activist, known as “Mother Georgia King,” gave it her best on the battlefield for the poor and downtrodden. She died Feb. 7 at the age of 82.

King was moved to action after learning that MHA had begun the process of relocating senior residents from several public housing developments after opting into the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) Program.

RAD allows private ownership of public housing properties to be converted into Section 8 housing. King also had to vacate her home in Jefferson Square, in Downtown Memphis. 

King’s tenacity and determination to get things done was widely known and undergirded by other activists and friends. It wasn’t unusual for King to organize and rally the community around causes she championed.

“Here was a woman whose health was horrible, but she kept a sham of it because of what she wanted to do for the people,” said Ann Yates, who’d known the activist since 2010.

“She was always wallowing in trying to help the downtrodden,” said Yates, owner of The Bazaar that King frequented. “She was like my ‘ace boon coon,’” and added, “We had a saying that ‘I’m only a phone call away.’”

Yates was indeed a phone call away when King needed her for any given reason – perhaps to talk about the vicissitudes of life, or maybe a campaign that she was involved in.

Since King was a bus rider, Yates would often transport her to events, including “all my birthday parties I gave. In fact, I have more than 70 pictures in my [cell] phone of places me and Georgia went to together.”

King always found a way to get to her destination – even if she had to ride the MATA (Memphis Area Transit Authority) bus. In 2012, she founded the Memphis Bus Riders Union, a grassroot organization fighting for better public transportation.

In 1989, King and other leaders led a contingent called the New Exodus Walkers on a 250-mile walk from Roanoke, Va., to the steps of the Capitol to urge Congress to make the homeless a priority.

King had fought for the homeless since 1960 when she was 20 years old. She also worked with the mentally ill and the chemically dependent and sought to open a mission for the homeless.

 Ondera Heggie, King’s eldest daughter, said she and her sister would accompany their mother to events when they were children. “Being a child, we accompanied her to a lot of places.”

Heggie said she watched her mother evolve from the entertainment world to civil rights activism to a spiritual person who loved the Lord. “It allowed her to cross all racial and ethnic lines,” she said.

“My mother didn’t see color or race,” added Marlena McClatchey, King’s other daughter. “She helped everybody; she loved everybody. Even if you were no good, she found the good in you anyway.”

McClatchey said she’s “just floored and honored” seeing the impact that her mother had made in the community and the many lives she had touched including the motherless and the fatherless.

When Stanley Campbell loss his mother in 2020, King stepped in to fill the void and ease the pain. “She said, ‘Cam, I think your mother wants me to be your mother figure here on earth.’”

Nicknamed “Cam Mtenzi,” Campbell is a community activist and proprietor of the House of Mtenzi, a word meaning artist in Swahili. He’s known King for more than 20 years.

“My mom is gone; now Mother King is gone,” he said, and referred to King as his “guardmother (sic).”

Campbell remembers speaking with King a month ago when she was gravely ill in the hospital. “She would call me and say, ‘Cam, what are you doing? What’s next on the agenda.’” 

King always thought about others, Campbell said. “In her last days, she was a giver on her sick bed. She wasn’t thinking about herself.”

Heggie added: “She was just little Georgia King who loved God and loved His people.”

“She will be truly missed,” McClatchey said.

Young Actors Guild of Memphis Celebrates 32 Years as the ‘Harriet’ Comes to Life

Kirsten Harrell, seen here practicing her dance moves, is an
18-year-old Middle College High School student in Memphis and
a company YAG dancer. (Photos by Wiley Henry)

Josie Aldridge, a 13-year-old eighth-grade student from Olive
Branch, Miss., performs spoken word art during a rehearsal
at the Harriet Performing Arts Center.

MEMPHIS, TN – The Harriet Performing Arts Center is home to the Young Actors Guild (YAG) of Memphis. On Feb. 19, the day YAG was born 32 years ago, Chrysti Chandler will celebrate the art center’s second grand opening at 3 p.m.

Located at 2788 Lamar Ave. and Pendleton Street in the historic Orange Mound/Bethel Grove community, this grand opening completes the second round of renovations to the Harriet, which had been an old vacant fire station that Chandler purchased in 2019 from the City of Memphis for $1. 

“All we had to do was renovate it,” she said. 

Chandler contacted three architectural firms to convert the 4000 sq ft. Fire Station No. 22 into multi-purpose studio spaces for three-to 18-year-olds to practice their craft: performing arts, creative arts, theatre, writing, etc.

They all turned her down, she said. “They didn’t think we had the money – which we didn’t.” After running into one of the principles at Self+Tucker Architects, the firm offered to help. 

“We knew we were going to persevere,” she said.

Chandler raised more than $200,000 from the sale of hotdogs, hamburgers, and popcorn at FedExForum to renovate the fire station’s interior first. “We did carwashes and the parents donated too,” she said.

The second phase – the facade – “was completed this week,” said Chandler, and cost around $200,000 as well. Landscaping, lights, a freedom path walk, and signage, which Self+Tucker is designing, will complete the third and final phase sometime in January 2024. 

Although the arts center is named after Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist who freed dozens of slaves via the Underground Railroad, Chandler was inspired to open the Harriet after visiting the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, Calif. 

“We took students there on a college tour in 2018,” she said. “When we drove up, we were right in the ’hood just like we’re in the ’hood in Orange Mound. Those kids that came to her studio were so happy.”

Chandler was confident she could do the same thing in Orange Mound, where she grew up, that Allen had done in California. When she returned to Memphis, she began the arduous work of bringing the Harriet to life.

Since 1991, the year Chandler founded YAG, countless students practiced each Saturday and sometimes on Sunday to hone their talent, to sharpen their skills. The youth group has flourished since then, even without a facility to call their own.

The LeMoyne-Owen College Student Center Little Theater was YAG’s first location. There are two satellite locations: one at 619 North Seventh St. and the other at 1926 First Commercial Dr. N. in Southaven, Miss.

Students come from as far away as Mississippi and Arkansas and other places outside of Memphis to be a part of YAG. Their parents and grandparents lend a helping hand as well, Chandler said. 

Josie Aldridge, a 13-year-old eighth-grade student at Center Hill Middle School in Olive Branch, Miss., joined the group when she was seven years old. She’s on the cusp of doing something great.

An aspiring writer and spoken-word artist, Josie is a little shy – until she takes the stage and delivers a panoply of poetry. But Chandler and her team first helped Josie to release her inhibitions. 

“It helped me come out of my comfort zone. Without it, I wouldn’t have shared any of my writings in the first place,” said Josie, who was inspired to write after listening to the art of spoken word.

“Originally, I was writing songs. But I stopped doing that because I heard other spoken word [art] online, especially during quarantine,” she said. “So, I started writing my own.” 

“They come alive on stage,” said Chandler, referring to Josie and other standouts who shine when they’re facing an audience.

“Josie is phenomenal,” added Sabrina Norwood, YAG’s executive director. “We always tell young people to find their purpose.”

Many of them did – and excelled. 

Gideon McKinney was a 2006 semi-finalist in Season 5 of American Idol; Kris Thomas competed in Season 4 of The Voice in 2013; and Evvie McKinney, Gideon’s sister, won the first season of The Four: Battle for Stardom in 2018. 

“Ms. Chrysti has a gift of putting people in the right place so that they can thrive,” said Norwood, adding: “We’re excited that young people have an awesome space to come to. We finally made our house a home.”

The Harriet’s funding sources vary. The major supporters are ArtsMemphis, which has naming rights to the dance studio; and Memphis Music Initiative, which has naming rights to the donor wall.

The Greater Memphis Chamber will snip the ribbon on Feb. 19.

Tyre Nichols’ Death Set Off Raw Emotions and a Change at MPD

 MEMPHIS, TN – The savage beatdown that five Black police officers inflicted upon Tyre Nichols during a purported traffic stop, set off a powder keg of raw emotions and a call for change at the Memphis Police Department.

When the city of Memphis released the video on Jan. 27, Bianca Baker said she wept. Then anger welled up in her and intensified. 

“You wouldn’t treat a dog the way they treated this man,” she said. “I have sons. What got me was when he called out for his mother.”

For Baker, the video was quite excruciating to watch. For Jacqueline Jordan, it dredged up painful memories of her own son, Brandon K. Jordan, who was killed in Nashville five years ago. 

Brandon, then 22, was a student at Tennessee State University during the day and worked at FedEx at night. He didn’t know the killer and his two accomplices. They didn’t know him either.

He never saw them coming on the night he was gunned down or knew their intentions. The killer just fired two rounds and snuffed out Brandon’s life and ended his dream of becoming a sports commentator.

Now Jordan wonders if Brandon had called for her like Nichols had called for his mother, RowVaughn Wells, who along with her husband, Rodney Wells, shared their pain with the media. 

Nichols’s desperate cry for his mother was ignored by the five officers who pummeled him to death less than a hundred yards from his home, ironically, in the same subdivision where Jordan once lived.

Wells said she felt pain in her stomach around the time when Desmond Mills, Demetrius Haley, Justin Smith, Emmitt Martin, and Tadarrius Bean roughhoused her 29-year-old son on Jan. 7. He died on Jan. 10. 

“Innocent people are always getting hurt,” said Jordan. “I know how Tyre’s mother feels. I am a mother too. Every day I think about my baby.”

MPD Police Director Cerelyn “CJ” Davis terminated all five officers on Jan. 18. Each one faces second-degree murder; aggravated assault, acting in concert; two counts of aggravated kidnapping; two counts of official misconduct; and official oppression.

Baker is calling for a charge of first-degree murder for each ex-officer. “They beat him and kicked him like he was a roach,” she said. “I think they intentionally tried to kill him.”  

On Saturday, Jan. 28, Davis disbanded MPD’s Scorpion unit after calls for its disbandment rose to a feverish pitch. The ex-officers posted bail; they’re scheduled to be arraigned in mid-February.

Bennie Cobb, a retired captain with the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office who has 37 years in law enforcement, said Davis had done the right thing. He, too, had called for MPD’s Scorpion unit to be disbanded.

“What you have is these guys under the color of law running and gunning and stopping people, trying to develop probable cause,” Cobb opined. “The stop itself was a pretext stop.”

Cobb explained that a pretext stop in law enforcement is not unusual. “You make the stop and then develop a probable cause afterward,” he said. “That’s what they were doing.” 

He didn’t want to see the video initially. But when he was called upon by the media to give his expert analysis on Nichols’s fatal beating, he looked carefully at the video and analyzed it.

The charges are warranted, said Cobb, owner of Eagle Eye Security Consultant and Training, where he trains police officers, security personnel, or interested citizens. 

He also teaches self-defense classes, handgun safety, and de-escalation techniques, which the ex-officers didn’t employ, he said, adding, “Not one time did I see any real resistance. I didn’t see him fighting back.”

 

Cobb equates Nichols’s beatdown to a gang initiation when new members allow themselves to be “jumped in” as a sign of strength and courage. In her opinion, Jordan believes the ex-officers behaved like a pack of wolves.

Memphis set a record in 2021 with 346 murders, according to FBI data. Cobb said an enforcement unit is needed in such cases and believes the Scorpion unit will return most likely under another name.

“You have to have an enforcement unit with a clear mission statement, a strong supervisor, and address complaints as they come in,” he said, and added that Nichols’s death was a result of excessive force.