Never
one to shrink from civic responsibility or her role as standard-bearer, Glynn
Johns Reed has made headway in a world where the travails of life have prevented
a many African Americans -- past and present -- from realizing their true
potential.
Those
travails can be traced back to the slave trade. But it wasn’t until Reed
matriculated at Tennessee State University in the late ‘60s that she made a
conscious decision to shake up the status quo that had unleashed the fury in women
such as Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer.
“All my life I've been sick and
tired. Now I'm
sick and tired of being sick and tired,” said Hamer, a civil rights activist protesting her
right to vote in the ‘60s.
Reed’s
protest wasn’t political per se, but donning an Afro on the campus of TSU was
an outward sign that she, too, was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” She protested
vehemently by celebrating her African-American ethnicity, asserting her right
to be heard, and challenging a system that had given rise to Jim Crow and thus permeated
Southern thinking.
“I was
with a group that burned down the ROTC building at TSU,” said Reed, disclosing
a decades-old secret that no doubt baffled campus officials at the time. Though
she admits not starting the fire, the sideline view she’d taken was her way of
protesting the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Vietnam War,
and what she’d considered to be an unjust system that had relegated African
Americans to menial jobs, a back-of-the-bus experience, and an uncertain
future.
That epoch
was vintage Jim Crow – or somewhere afterward where unjust laws against African
Americans would soon be dismantled -- but the vestiges of racism and
discrimination would linger. Reed thus began asserting pride in self and in a
race of people that had struggled mightily to break shackles in the arts, entertainment,
education, medicine, business and other noteworthy professions before and after
Reed left TSU.
“I never
liked working with the system. I always bucked it. I was always in protest mode,”
said Reed, who was determined to find her own way in life, including rejecting
that which would bind her tenacious pursuit of self-awareness and cultural identity.
Perhaps
what drove Reed’s awareness of self early on and her afro-centric bent is the
fact that she grew up in the Douglass community in Memphis where the center of
her universe was speckled with black people: friends, neighbors, school chums,
“Mom and Pop” businesses.
“I
thought it was more black people in the world,” she said, “because I grew up in
a sheltered black neighborhood and went to black schools and college.”
But then
something happened after Reed ventured beyond the periphery of the Douglass
community in pursuit of a higher calling. “It was a culture shock when I found
out there were more white people than us,” said Reed, who would solidify her
pro-black stance and look for opportunities to promote the African-American
experience. She also would start budding as an entrepreneur and take on a few
jobs in between to support herself.
But the
spark that first ignited Reed’s passion for serving her people has not been
extinguished to this day – for she’s since championed from Day 1 many causes
and endeavors to help as many African Americans get ahead as possible in Memphis,
where she was born, and in New Orleans, a city that has shaped who she’s become
today. And those who benefit the most from her sensibility and sensitivity to
the African-American cause understand what motivates her to succeed.
Success,
in large part, is predicated upon the persistent effort that a person puts into
his or her work. And Glynn Johns Reed, who has made an inedible mark in the
African-American community in both cities, doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
And why
should she?
Because
Reed is at the apex of her career and has always been at the ready when
transacting business or managing to be in the right place at the right time in
history. Each step forward, for example, has ensured her legacy and a luminous
vita in the annals of history.
Creating
a business climate in New Orleans…
After
graduating from Douglass in 1966 and receiving a Bachelor of Science Degree in
Business Administration from TSU in 1971, Reed worked as a bookkeeper for the
Memphis Urban League, took an administrative job in a sickle cell office, set
up an office for acupuncturist Dr. I.K. H. Chang, worked as a commodities
broker, and left for New Orleans in 1976, where she began honing her
entrepreneurial skills and investing sweat and equity in the community.
Though
Memphis was slow to satisfy Reed’s insatiable appetite for social and cultural uplift,
the “Big Easy,” on the other hand, drew Reed to the arts, entertainment, food,
music, the business community, and the granddaddies of them all -- the Jazz
Fest and the Mardi Gras. The collective experience – which started when she
first set foot in New Orleans -- is simply “electric,” she said.
“The
first thing I want when I get to New Orleans is an overstuffed Shrimp Po’ boy.”
After
Reed’s acclimation to New Orleans’ culture, the entrepreneurial ideas in her head
started churning. In no certain order she launched the Message Board Telephone
Answering Service, started publishing the Black Pages to promote black
businesses, taught aspiring models at the Barbizon School of Modeling and
managed the agency for a year, performed in over 50 television commercials and
movies, became a member of the Screen Actor’s Guild, and was the first black
concierge hired at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, next to the Super Dome.
“People
like Dr. J (Julius Erving) and Pelé (a Brazilian soccer player)
were staying at the hotel and would ask me where they could find a black
restaurant or a black cab company,” said Reed, who would soon launch “An
Official Guide to New Orleans,” the precursor to “The Black Pages New Orleans,”
after she herself couldn’t find someone to shape her Afro.
“I
love Memphis, but my heart is in New Orleans,” said Reed, who, within 20 years,
solidified her reputation as a businesswoman and became an inextricable part of
the city’s cultural mix. Her sojourn to the city along with her business acuity
has enabled her to network effortlessly between Memphis and New Orleans, which
earned her the moniker of “master networker.”
It
was Reed’s networking ability that enabled her to bring the first Black rodeo
to New Orleans in September of ’95. The Cherokee Bill Wild West Rodeo was held
at the University of New Orleans - Lakefront Arena, which honored noted cowboys
such as Nat Love, also known as Deadwood Dick (1854-1921), Willie M. “Bill”
Pickett (1870-1932), and James P. Beckwourth (1798-1866).
“I
introduced that culture to New Orleans,” said Reed, who was living in Memphis
at that time. “People never realized there were real Black cowboys.”
Though
Reed’s parents never ventured outside the Douglass enclave to live, Reed wanted
something else. So she created a haven in New Orleans that has earned her kudos
from the elite and people in the community where she has a vested interest in
creating a climate for African Americans to succeed.
Reed’s
two decades in the cultural mecca included building a family structure. Her
son, Reuben Johnson, was born in Nashville, but enrolled in first grade at St. Louis
Cathedral School. He graduated from St. Augustine High School, both within the
Catholic Church, and afterward attended Nicholls State University in Thibodaux,
La.
Reed’s
daughter, Crystal Chopin, was born in New Orleans, and lived there for a while
after she obtained her Business Administration degree at the University of
Tennessee. She now lives in Memphis, after evacuating from Hurricane Katrina,
and works with her mother as the multi-media coordinator for the Black Pages.
Reed
raised Crystal and Reuben on the culture, pizzazz and splendor of New Orleans
and once lived at Gov Nicholls and Dauphine, and at 601 Esplanade and Charters in
The French Quarter. “When my son became an adult, he thanked me for raising him
in The French Quarter,” said Reed, who’d learned much about living in an
international environment as did her children.
“In New
Orleans, it doesn’t matter if you’re black, white or Ethiopian. It’s a melting
pot of cultures,” said Reed, recalling the blues song “Let the Good Times Roll”
as an example of how she’s lived her life.
The
advent of Juneteenth…
Reed
moved back to Memphis in 1991 after folding the Black Pages that she’d started
in 1978. “We had a brain drain,” she explained. “When it was time to deliver
the Black Pages, businesses had shut down. People were struggling and the city
couldn’t cut the grass on the neutral (median) grounds.”
Networking
had come relatively easy -- perhaps innate -- for Reed. Although she left
behind the ambience of New Orleans – temporarily, that is – another idea was
planted in 1993 that took root in Memphis: The Juneteenth Freedom &
Heritage Festival.
Reed
said the idea had come to her after her pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist
Church had requested that she oversee the June birthday month celebration,
since her own birthday is in June. “We did a Juneteenth program and 27 people
showed up on a Friday evening. So they said, ‘You must take this to the
community.’ So we took it to Douglass Park because of the shade trees.”
Reed
had given much consideration to the aggregation of people and wrote a proposal
called “Summer in the Shade.” She presented the proposal to the executive director
of Memphis in May, then a burgeoning organization celebrating the rich culture
and historical significance of faraway countries to Memphis. Needless to say,
the proposal didn’t go anywhere in the MIM organization.
The
first time that MIM saluted the Netherlands, Reed was busy in the office
working as a bookkeeper after answering an ad in the classifieds of the local
daily. The job lasted about five months, she said. During that time, “I saw how
they put Memphis in May together, and it wasn’t rocket science. Their poster
unveilings were also an inspiration to me.”
What
Reed had taken away from MIM was hands-on experience in organization, structure
and management. But there was another side to the growing organization that troubled
her the most: the artist contract-for-hire.
“If it
had not been for Memphis in May, there might not have been a Juneteenth,”
concedes Reed, who was teaching
inner-city preteens, teens and young adults the importance of etiquette and
social grace at her own Ms. Glynn’s Charm and Finishing School. Over 300
participants would graduate.
The festival
has grown considerably; drawing approximately 45,000 festivalgoers during its
annual three-day run in late-June. It is an anchor in North Memphis and
undoubtedly one of Reed’s crowning achievements. However, after 18 years at the
helm, Reed has moved on, choosing to re-focus instead on the Black Pages New
Orleans.
“New
Orleans is for me,” said Reed, who commutes to and fro, and still the master
networker. “I want to be buried there.”
The ‘60s
and ‘70s had opened Reed’s eyes to the systemic problems that negatively
affected African Americans. But Reed found another way to sidestep those
problems and focus on the culture, heritage and entrepreneurial spirit of her
people.
Bringing
African American culture and heritage into the spotlight is second nature to
Reed. In 88 years, for example, the “Sojourner Truth Memorial Time Capsule” that
Reed and her husband buried on June 19, 2000, in Robert R. Church Park in
downtown Memphis will be unearthed to reveal the historical items from
Memphis’s first Black mayor, Dr. Willie Herenton, the late photojournalist
Ernest Withers, and other contributors. The time capsule was the climax of the
7th Annual Juneteenth Freedom & Heritage Festival.
“For me,
it was about blackness,” said Reed, ending the conversation with her motto: “If
you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”
