Cohen’s District Director was 'an Extremely Talented Administrator'

Marzie Gates Thomas conducting business in her office 
for Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional District Congressman
Steve Cohen. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

She was well respected in the community. Thanks to her upbringing, the affable Marzie Gates Thomas often paid homage to the grandmother who raised her to be humble, compassionate, and to treat people with dignity and respect.

In addition to her own inherent attributes, Thomas trusted God and never forgot the values that her grandmother, Marzie Simpson, instilled.

On June 12, Thomas died at Methodist University Hospital following a short illness. She was 72 and left behind a legacy of service that can be attributed to her faith in God, her church, her family, and her grandmother’s guidance.  

“She was indispensable to our office and to the work we do in the community,” said Tennessee’s 9^th Congressional District Congressman Steve Cohen, who first appointed Thomas in 2007 to serve as his special assistant for veterans’ affairs and community outreach.

In 2009, the congressman tapped Thomas to be his deputy district director. In 2013, she took on the role of district director. “She was so well liked by the constituents who came into the office and handled them as though she had on white patent gloves,” Cohen said.

Thomas was still on the job when her illness took a turn for the worst.

“An extremely talented administrator, she understood the district and did an outstanding job meeting my constituents’ needs because of a deep familiarity with them as a 16-year newspaper editor and publisher for The Tri-State Defender,” Cohen said.

The weekly African-American newspaper is where Robert Lipscomb first befriended Thomas decades ago when he was formerly Memphis mayor Dr. Willie W. Herenton’s director of both Memphis Housing Authority and Housing & Community Development.

“I knew Marzie for a long time,” Lipscomb said. “She was a good, kind, and decent person who never met a stranger. She was true to her roots and was just a great person. She was willing to help anybody at any time.”

Lipscomb said there was “none better” than Thomas. “I choose to remember her like she was,” he said. “She was just a wonderful person; she was uncommonly kind to everybody. She never had a bad day that I saw.”

Thomas was the youngest of two children born to Thelma and Myrial Gates on July 11, 1952. She and her brother, the late Reverend Richard D. Gates, were raised by their grandmother. Another sister, Aimee Gates, was born later.

“One of the most cherished memories is from when I was just four or five years old,” Gates remembered. “I was so eager to introduce my best friend to my big sister — as if she were my most treasured possession that I wanted to share with everyone. That’s how special she was to me.”

Thomas and her husband, the late Alonzo Thomas Jr., were special to Michael Hooks Sr. as well. What Hooks remembered most about the couple was their ability to touch the lives of people.

“She had been a real public servant. She had real talent and surrounded herself with great people,” said Hooks, a former Shelby County Commissioner and member of the famed Corner Club, where he would leisure and ham it up with Thomas’s husband and other members.

But death would befall Thomas’s husband the first month in 2024. He was the love of her life and her “best friend” throughout their 47 years of marriage. They were inseparable and raised two daughters, Marthel Ellison and Richara Thomas. They also doted on their granddaughter, Madison Ellison. 

“While my mother was widely known as a devoted servant and a respected pillar in the community, to us, she was so much more,” said Ellison, the eldest daughter. “She was the heart of our family, our beacon of hope, and the deepest source of love and strength.”

Richara Thomas said her mother was her best friend and one of her greatest teachers. “She was a true foundation of what our family was built upon. I am saddened but take joy in knowing that she is no longer suffering and peacefully in the arms of God.”

Cohen also regarded Thomas as family. “She was like a mother,” he said. “She cared for me greatly — always reaching out to see how I was and offering any help.”

While Thomas’s administrative skills were par excellent to those who knew her, she was widely known as a gospel soloist whose voice was captivating. Cohen was delighted when she sang at the opening and dedication of the Odell Horton Federal Building in 2022.

Thomas was a life-long member of the historic East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church, where she sang in the choir. She grew up under the tutelage of the famed gospel songwriter Dr. William H. Brewster and continued to serve under the leadership of Pastor Julius Beasley. 

“Although our hearts are heavy with grief, we find peace in submitting to God’s will, knowing that her true healing awaited her on the other side,” said Ellison. “She taught us never to doubt God’s plan, and above all, she was a woman of unwavering faith.”

The visitation will be held on Thursday, July 3, from 6-8 p.m., at R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home, 374 Vance Ave., Memphis, TN. 38126. The homegoing celebration is Saturday, July 5 at 11 a.m. at East Trigg Avenue Baptist Church, 1315 S. Bellevue Blvd., Memphis, TN. 38106. The interment will be in Elmwood Cemetery, 824 S. Dudley Street, Memphis, TN. 38104, immediately following the service.

Copyright 2025 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved. 

Distinguished Memphians honored with the Memphis Heritage Trailblazer Award

Some of the trailblazers included Joyce Blackmon (left), Beverly Robertson,
Ruby Bright and Jocelyn Wurzburg. (Photos by Isaac Singleton)

“On my radio program every Sunday, I always start off with ‘Tell the Lord thank you,’” said Markhum “Mark” L. Stansbury Sr., a longtime luminary who has made his mark at WDIA-AM 1070, the first radio station in the U.S. that was programmed for African Americans.

Stansbury is a history-maker whose storied career runs the gamut from radio personality to university administrator to interim college president to photojournalist to newspaper reporter to serving on prominent boards to community service and more.

He has been the recipient of several awards too – including the latest one that he and 27 other distinguished Memphians received for “advancing civil and human rights and carrying the torch to uphold its African-American History and Culture.”

Markhum "Mark" L. Stansbury Sr. was one of 28 Memphis
who received the trailblazer award. Paul Young, director of
Housing and Community Development, and Felicia Harris,
Memphis's Planning and Development manager, flank him.

The city of Memphis and the Division of Housing and Community Development presented the “trailblazers” with the Memphis Heritage Trailblazer Award on Dec. 7 at the Halloran Centre For Performing Arts & Education.

The award was named for the Memphis Heritage Trail, a historic 60-block redevelopment area in downtown Memphis, which is considered the epicenter of African-American history, heritage and culture.  

“We are extremely excited about the Memphis Heritage Trail project and it has been eight years of planning to get us where we are today,” said Felicia Harris, the city’s Planning and Development manager. “It is important for us to pay homage to those individuals who have fought and continue to fight for civil and human rights.”

In addition to Stansbury, the award also went to Yvonne and David Acey, Ekundayo Bandele, Joyce Blackmon, Ruby Bright, Atty. Mike Cody, Erma Clanton, 
Fred Davis, 
Bishop William Graves, the Rev. Dr. L. LaSimba M. Gray Jr., Happy Jones
, Marion Mitchell and Robert Lipscomb, the former HCD director who led the Heritage Trail project at the onset
. Paul Young is the current HCD director.

Clanton, a playwright, lyricist and former schoolteacher, started saluting trailblazers in 2003; and each February at New Sardis Baptist Church, a dozen or more Memphians are honored with the “Living Legends Award.”

At 93, Clanton is more inclined to shower praises on others and honor them than accept the honor she’s long overdue. “It was a collection of black and white citizens who’ve made a contribution to Memphis,” she said. “It just encourages me at my age to do more.”

The other trailblazers included Dr. James Netters, Atty. Charlie Newman, O C Pleasant Jr., Diane Rudner, James “D’eke” Pope, Beverly Robertson, Dr. Coby Smith, Judge Russell Sugarmon, Calvin Taylor
, Henry Turley
, Elaine Lee Turner, 
Rosalind Withers
, Jocelyn Wurzburg, and Jan Young.

“Society has so much to thank these individuals for,” said Mayor Jim Strickland. “These recipients come from all walks of life and have sacrificed to make a better Memphis for us all.”

 “I just want to tell Him thank you for putting me in a position to be able to speak out for those who didn’t have a voice and couldn’t,” said Stansbury, who doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight with those who’ve also made contributions to society.

He credits the late international photojournalist Ernest C. Withers Sr. for stepping up to the plate as his mentor in photography. Rosalind Withers, who is blazing a trail as executive director of the Withers Collection Museum & Gallery, is carrying on her father’s legacy.

“It’s an honor to pick up the torch and make his (Ernest Withers) body of work a part of our own every day lives,” said Rosalind Withers, who calls herself a legacy builder. “People know the work, but it’s my duty to make sure that people know the name.”

It takes a lot of effort and persistence to build and secure a legacy, said Withers, which was, without a doubt, one of the reasons she was tapped to receive the city’s first trailblazer award.  

“The job I’m doing is one of a kind,” she said.

For many, the plaudits keep coming.

‘Coliseum Coalition’ rallies to save the Mid-South Coliseum from demolition

     

Ron Daniels, a retired Memphis Defense Depot worker, signs a petition at
"Roundhouse Revival" festivities to save the Mid-South Coliseum from being razed
and replaced with a youth sporting complex. (Photo: Wiley Henry)

      If a group of activists is successful in thwarting the city of Memphis’ plan to raze the Mid-South Coliseum for a youth sports complex and retail development, the turnaround just might jumpstart a plan to repurpose the languishing 12,000-seat facility.

      “We don’t need a youth sports facility,” said Mike McCarthy, president of the Coliseum Coalition, a nonprofit, 30-plus-member group intent on saving the Mid-South Coliseum from demolition. “If you can put Bass Pro into a pyramid, you can put wrestling, shows, and concerts back into the Coliseum.”

      McCarthy is referring to the 20,000-seat Pyramid, which first opened in 1991 and abandoned in 2004, when the Memphis Grizzlies basketball franchise packed up and moved its operation to the newly built FedExForum.

      After 10 years of back-and-forth negotiations between the city and Bass Pro officials, the Pyramid is now transformed into Bass Pro Shops, which reopened April 29. It has taken three years to repurpose the 32-story stainless steel building and retrofit it for stability.

      The Coliseum has been dormant as well, since 2006. McCarthy, a filmmaker, tour guide and cultural preservationist, noted that it, too, could be repurposed to attract smaller groups, concerts and other kinds of events to keep them from taking business and sorely needed tax dollars across the border to the Landers Center in Southaven, Miss., a multipurpose, 8,400-seat arena.

      McCarthy’s sentiments were shared Saturday (May 23) by a bevy of supporters converging on the west side of the Coliseum for the “Roundhouse Revival,” a Coalition-sponsored event organized to bring awareness to the empty husk of brick and mortar and the splendor of what the building once represented.

      “This is a good looking building, an available building, that needs to be repurposed,” said Mark Jones, a Coalition member. “Some people have never set foot on the property.”

      Marvin Stockwell has set foot on the property many times and is adamant about saving it. A communications director at the Church Health Center and a Coalition member as well, Stockwell said discussions about the Coliseum’s fate “felt adversarial” during earlier meetings with Mayor A C Wharton Jr.

      “Now they’re friendly,” he said.

      The free event was also supported by the city, which surprised the leaders of the Coalition, who did not expect the city’s full cooperation. Although there had been meetings with Housing and Community Development director Robert Lipscomb, the city hunkered down and backed the event financially.

      Lipscomb has led the push to redevelop the area for a Fairgrounds Tourism Development Zone (TDZ) for some time now. The TDZ would yield additional sales tax revenue to finance the Fairgrounds project, it has been reported.

      The Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium and the Coliseum, of course, would figure into the city’s plan to attract amateur sporting events to the area. But because there has been public pushback, plans to raze the Coliseum have been temporarily put on hold – for now.

      The TDZ plan does not bode well for the Coalition and their supporters. In an effort to quell frustrations, the city is soliciting input, a civic discussion, from the community. The Coalition, however, is asking supporters to sign a petition to save the Coliseum.

      They claim more than 3,000 signatures have been collected from across the United States and over 20 foreign countries. Add to that 2,000 Facebook group members, they boast.

      Meanwhile, the city is assuring the community will have its say. On June 1 and 2, there will be four community meetings, each starting at 5:30 p.m.

      The meetings on June 1 will be held at the Airways Professional Building, 3385 Airways; and at Bert Ferguson Community Center, 8505 Trinity. The next two meetings will be held June 2 at the Kroc Center, 800 East Parkway South; and Cunningham Community Center, 3773 Old Allen.

      The city contracted with the National Charette Institute, a nonprofit educational institution in Portland, Ore., and Urban Land Institute, a District Council serving the Mid-South, to ascertain public feedback and ideas for a reconfigured Fairgrounds.

      Hundreds of supporters and those no doubt curious about the purpose of the daylong event – which included vendors, bands, and other forms of entertainment – expressed their concerns and shared ideas for a “revival” of the aging structure, once home to Monday Night Wrestling, where a “king” was crowned and a “superstar” was born.

      Wrestling aficionados and die-hard fans of Jerry “The King” Lawler and Bill “Superstar” Dundee put on a show Saturday that was reminiscent of Memphis wrestling. The two local legends took on The Coliseum Crushers, masked grapplers who worked up a sweat in the searing heat in one of two small rings in front of the Coliseum as spectators jeered.

      Wrestling brought back fond memories for many of them; but for others, it was the concerts, graduations and basketball games – nostalgic moments worthy of a rebirth – that ignited their activism and evoked ideas for a fresh start for the Coliseum.

      “I grew up here in Memphis and came to a lot of wonderful activities at the Coliseum, such as high school graduations, concerts and basketball games,” said Ron Daniels, a retired Memphis Defense Depot worker.

      “It was a good deal,” he said. “It used to be the largest venue other than the Ellis Auditorium (a 10,000-seat, multipurpose arena built in 1924 and demolished in 1997)” and replaced with the Memphis Cook Convention Center.

      Crafts artist Deborah Armour, one of the vendors, remembers being summoned to the Coliseum for jury duty selection. She also attended graduations there and The Jackson’s concert in 1981 when young, sizzling Michael Jackson and his brothers were burning up the charts with hits after hits.

      “Right now you’re limited to a number of people who can come to a graduation ceremony,” said Armour, explaining that high school graduates are only given a few tickets for family members to attend. “It (Coliseum) still can be used for other things as well…anything that requires a smaller venue other than the FedExForum.”

      Anita Wilson, a manicurist, sees the Coliseum fiasco through a political prism. “There’s politics in every decision the city makes,” she surmised. “[And] they don’t always make the right decision.”  

      Just like some of the others attending the Roundhouse Revival, Wilson offered ideas that could possibly resurrect and restore the Coliseum to its former glory. But so far the ideas from supporters have yet to determine the fate of the Coliseum or how the building could be transformed.

      Concerts were ongoing at the Coliseum, an overwhelming consensus that Wilson shares. She added that a return to this form of entertainment could generate additional revenue for the city’s coffers.

      “For concerts, etc., instead of [people] going to the Landers Center, why not keep the money in Memphis,” she said.

      Charlie “Chuck” Thomas, regional director of External and Legislative Affairs for AT&T, grew up in the Orange Mound community, where his mother taught music at Melrose High School. It is a stone’s throw from the Coliseum.

      Recalling the vitality and high energy that radiated from the Coliseum and reverberated throughout the community,” Thomas said, “I used to go here a lot. There’s no better structure in the Mid-South area than the Mid-South Coliseum. I spent my young life here.”

About the Mid-South Coliseum…

      The Mid-South Coliseum, located at 940 Early Maxwell, was built in 1964 under the old Memphis City Code of 1949. It is 11 stories tall (approximately 160 feet in height) and has a maximum seating capacity of 12,000.

      If the Coliseum were to return to its “useful life,” the building would have to be brought up to the International Existing Building Code as adopted by the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Construction Code Enforcement, according to a code analysis conducted by Code Solutions Group, LLC on July 30, 2009.

      The detail report noted that the interior of the Coliseum would have to be seriously reworked to ensure the safety of the building, among other repairs, and correct the number and percentage of handicap facilities.

      The Coliseum closed its doors in late 2006 because the building was not in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law banning discrimination based on disability. It would have cost the city $30 million to fix the ADA violations and an estimated $33 million to demolish the building.

      On Dec. 6, 2000, the Mid-South Coliseum was listed on the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of the Interior.

First-time authors write their way toward overcoming obstacles

"Don't Count Me Out: Contending Voices," published recently by Blues City
Cultural Center, is a collection of narratives and poetry by members of  "Seek
to Serve," a program that promotes servant leadership. (Photos: Wiley Henry)

Overcoming obstacles and turning them into successes is the crux of a recently published book of narratives written by members of a leadership program expressly designed to develop, enhance and promote servant leadership among persons living in affordable public housing.

“Don’t Count Me Out: Contending Voices,” compiled and edited by Carolyn Matthews for Blues City Cultural Center’s Seek to Serve Program, is the end-product of an idea spawned three years ago by a facilitator for Seek to Serve.  

“The book idea was incubating for a few years with the grassroots leadership training leaders, Naomi Dyson and Deborah Frazier,” said Matthews. “Dyson conceived the title and Frazier searched for ways to sustain the momentum and document the history of the organization.”

“She (Dyson) felt the participants had such rich stories of overcoming that needed to be told,” added Frazier, who co-directs (with her husband Levi Frazier) Blues City Cultural Center (BCCC), an arts organization using the arts to enlighten, empower and transform.

"Don't Count Me Out..."

A subsequent book signing is set for Wednesday (June 3) at 6:30 p.m. at Southwest Tennessee Community College’s Parrish Library, Room 101. Some of the authors will be available to read their work.

Martha Perine Beard, vice president and regional executive of Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis – Memphis Branch, wrote the book’s preface. Robert Lipscomb, executive director of the Memphis Housing Authority, touted Seek to Serve in the book’s foreword.

“Seek to Serve” was created to reinforce to residents that they are valued citizens of Memphis,” Lipscomb wrote. “They have positive gifts and talents that should be shared to make Memphis better, and are vital to its well-being.”

Program participants had much to express in writing workshops facilitated by Matthews, who sought ways to hone their creativity in narratives by using their own voice. She also interviewed them about their lives in their homes and in the class.

“I wanted to stay close to the initial premise of the project – to share the impact of Seek to Serve on the lives the authors,” Matthews explained. “As the participants shared their stories, there was a dominant thread: overcoming adversity due to lack of resources, unhealthy relationships, or from self-limiting mindsets or societal marginalization.”

Noticing the similarities in their stories, it became clear to Matthews “that this theme running through the stories was the life force of the impact of Seek to Serve (a six-month program) because it revealed how they were changed by their participation.”

Editing the colloquial voice can present a challenge, said Matthews, an accomplished writer whose poetry and prose have appeared in “Homespun Images: An Anthology of Black Memphis Writers,” “The Laurel Review,” “Newsmagazine,” “Jewel Magazine,” and the forthcoming “Cave Canem Anthology: 2010.”

“When you say to someone, ‘I value you. I want to teach you how to articulate YOUR issues and concerns, because you have something meaningful to contribute to your community, and I care about what you say,’ I think it is important to trust that their voice is powerful enough to communicate their message. (And) preserving their voices validates their message.”

The grassroots servant leadership program began with an idea on a Walgreen’s parking lot between Frazier and Lipscomb, then the newly appointed director of the Memphis Housing Authority. Frazier was program director at Leadership Memphis.  

There were 22 affordable housing communities in Memphis at that time, and Lipscomb, Frazier recalls, saw the need for a leadership program that would train the presidents of those housing communities.

The year was 2000. The following year the first class graduated. The Seek to Serve program, however, stayed with Leadership Memphis until 2007 and then moved to the Uptown Resource Center, where it is currently located at 314 A.W. Willis Ave.

“One of the goals of this servant leadership program is that a participant will NOT talk about his or her accomplishments or problems, but search to praise or help his neighbor,” said Frazier. “As a result, we celebrated the accomplishments of others and what they had done at home, at church, and in their community.

“This book says you never stop trying...you never stop learning...you never give up.  It takes the group to encourage the individual.  So it’s more than encouraging yourself; it’s about encouraging your neighbor and then you are encouraged.”

BCCC, whose tag line is “ARTS FOR A BETTER WAY OF LIFE,” has received funding and support from neighborhood grants – Community Development Block Grant, FedEx, St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Tennessee Arts Commission, and ArtsMemphis.

“Don’t Count Me Out: Contending Voices” was published with funds from ArtsMemphis’ Arts Build Communities (ABC) grants. Funds also were derived from the IOBY (In Our Backyard) crowdfunding program, an online fundraising platform.

        (For more information about the book “Don’t Count Me Out: Contending Voices,” or Blues City Cultural Center’s Seek to Serve Program, contact Deborah Frazier at 901-292-2397 or by email at dfbluescity@yahoo.com. The website is www.bluescitycc.org)

The transformation of public housing in Memphis

     By 2016, the demolition of the last of Memphis’ large public housing developments for families could end the “warehousing” of some of the city’s poorest African-American residents and literally wipe clean the last vestiges of family public housing forever.

     The William H. Foote Homes, located on Danny Thomas Boulevard north of Mississippi Boulevard, was built in 1940 for low-income families. It is the last of the city’s public housing developments that was home to innumerable families from the onset.

University Place, built on the site of the Lamar Terrace
housing project. (Photo: Wiley Henry)

     The first tenants who took a survey were “gratified” to transition to their new digs with “inside toilets, adequate heating, and electricity,” according to a newspaper article during that period on an addition to Foote Homes.

     But the blueprint for housing the city’s indigent families is being revamped. There was merit in public housing; however, arguments abound over whether or not poverty, errant behavior, unsanitary conditions, and criminal activity come into play when there are large concentrations of people.

     “Crime is a result of poverty to some extent,” Robert Lipscomb, director of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and executive director of Memphis Housing Authority (MHA), reasons. “So we have to reduce poverty. And when you do that, you will see a reduction in crime.”

     Lipscomb is the face of public housing dismantlement and a proponent of replacing them with modern mixed-income communities. “We have to make sure that people have a good place to live, a choice of where they want to live,” said Lipscomb.

Lamar Terrace before it was redeveloped into University
Place. (Photo courtesy of Memphis Housing Authority)

     Although more than 400 families remain at Foote Homes, the fate of the 420-unit development is contingent on a Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that will be used to raze the development and replace it with a new community of mixed-income residents.

     Memphis was among four finalists vying for the grant in 2013, but was not one of the three cities that HUD selected. Lipscomb, however, is determined to secure the grant. A new development team is working diligently to meet the Feb. 9 deadline for the next round of funding some time in June or July.

     If Memphis is awarded the HUD grant, Lipscomb said, “We’ll be one of the first communities to get rid of public housing – and that says a lot about Memphis.”

MHA’s deteriorating housing stock…

     Lipscomb got his marching orders to clean up public housing nearly 20 years ago when Dr. Willie W. Herenton was the mayor of Memphis. Most developments were in disarray and conditions festered steadily to a point where they’d become blighted havens for youthful indiscretion, drugs and criminal activity.

     A Jan. 13, 1997, audit of MHA, from 1983 through June 30, 1996, was explicit and stated unequivocally that “MHA is not fulfilling its primary mission of providing decent, safe and sanitary housing for low-income families.”

     Squalor pervaded the developments and residents seemed resigned to live in such horrific conditions – those who remained. Of the 22 low-income housing developments that MHA owned and operated at that time (more than 7,000 units altogether), the large family developments suffered the most from interior and exterior decay, according to the audit.

     Several units were boarded up due to a lack of demand; others were extremely dilapidated. And deteriorated plumbing, electrical, walls/ceilings, and floors, among other infractions, were declared “unsafe.”  

     HUD’s Office of Inspector General had made it crystal clear that “MHA’s housing stock and grounds are in poor condition due to age, lack of maintenance and ineffective use of modernization funds, and have been for many years.”

     There was rampant theft, too, and people were vacating the developments, Lipscomb added.

     HUD put the city on notice with a recommendation that MHA be declared “in default of its Annual Contributions Contract (ACC), and initiate steps to obtain new management of MHA’s maintenance and modernization operations.”

     Translation: HUD was threatening to take over MHA’s operations.

     “The OIG report was horrible,” said Lipscomb, who was asked by MHA’s board of directors to replace Jerome D. Ryans, who was MHA’s executive director. Lipscomb took over in February 1999. Prior to his new duties, he’d run the city’s Housing and Community Development agency and left in 1996 to take a post at The LeMoyne-Owen College, his alma mater.

     “We were on HUD’s ‘troubled housing list’ for years (along with MHA’s Section 8 program) and was about to be taken over by HUD,” said Lipscomb.

     Problems were widespread. At the behest of Herenton, the city’s first African-American elected mayor, Lipscomb went to work. One of the mayor’s goals was to increase affordable housing for Memphis citizens.

Transforming public housing…

     MHA is the second oldest housing authority in the United States. The Memphis City Commission created it in 1935.

     The serious deterioration of public housing over subsequent decades and the “horrible” OIG report, however, precipitated a move by the Herenton administration to create something different for the city’s low-income residents.

     By the time the second African-American mayor moved into City Hall, the city was well on its way to becoming a “A City of Choice,” a tagline Mayor A C Wharton Jr. has used to pitch Memphis. The pitch includes transforming MHA’s public housing stock into a beautiful oasis of mixed-income communities with manicured lawns and ample amenities.

     Lipscomb is now working in tandem with Mayor Wharton to finish the job. The mayor once called the transformation of public housing a “revolution.” He is just as determined to make affordable housing a reality for low-income residents as his predecessor.

     LeMoyne Gardens was MHA’s first development to be demolished after receiving a $481,000 HOPE VI planning grant in 1994 and a $47.2 million HOPE VI Implementation Grant in 1995. LeMoyne Gardens was redeveloped with public and private funding and renamed College Park. A statue of Dr. Herenton, the fifth-term mayor, stands upright on its base facing his alma mater, The LeMoyne-Owen College.

     MHA has received five HOPE VI grants altogether from HUD, which set in motion the “revolution” that transformed public housing. “We had to do something,” Lipscomb said.

     Hurt Village, for example, was transformed into homes and apartments called Uptown, which was redeveloped in phases to include Metropolitan Apartments, Magnolia Terrace, Greenlaw Place, and scattered site rental units.  

     Lamar Terrace morphed into University Place. Dixie Homes was replaced with Legends Park Place and McKinley Park (on-site homeownership phase). And Cleaborn Homes is now called Cleaborn Pointe at Heritage Landing.

     Lauderdale Courts, another large family development, was redeveloped as Uptown Square with the use of mixed financing. It is also located in the Uptown area. Altogether, all five HOPE VI grants totaled $144 million.

     The unsightly developments were transformed into aesthetic environs, both residential and commercial. The HOPE VI grants were a game-changer for MHA. Still, there are other residential communities in its housing stock that have been – or are being – redeveloped, rehabilitated, or renovated.

     Foote Homes is the last family development to be demolished, which is targeted for a $30 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant. The grant “supports those communities that have undergone a comprehensive local planning process and are ready to implement their ‘Transformation Plan’ to redevelop the neighborhood.”

     The Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Grant replaces the HOPE VI grant. The Feb. 9 deadline is looming and Lipscomb and his team are making haste to meet it.

     “Around 2016, you’ll see some evidence of people moving forward,” said Lipscomb, keeping a positive attitude that the last age-old family development will go by way of the wrecking ball.