Can Mayor-elect Jim Strickland bridge a splintered Memphis community?

     

Mayor-elect Jim Strickland thanks his supporters, including a bevy of African-
Americans who stumped with him on the campaign trail. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

       “It’s over!” said former Shelby County Commissioner Sidney Chism, a resounding declaration that his longtime friend, Councilman Jim Strickland, had already scored a major victory before it was known that he’d trounced the incumbent mayor of Memphis in the Oct. 8 mayoral election.   

Chism had predicted Strickland would defeat Mayor A C Wharton Jr. at 8:30 p.m., an hour and a half before Strickland stood gaily amid a throng of supporters at Memphis Botanic Gardens to announce that he’d indeed won the race.

The former commissioner had foreseen a new chief executive moving into City Hall based on “the amount of support that A C has lost in the black community…and based on black folks wanting a change…and not who the candidate was.”

“With that in mind, it was easy to predict who would win,” said Chism, former chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party.

“When we started, we felt like we had the message that would resonate all throughout this city – which was focused on driving down crime and change. And that’s what the people wanted, whether North Memphis, East Memphis or South Memphis,” said Strickland following his victory speech.

Strickland is the first white mayor of Memphis since Dr. Willie W. Herenton beat incumbent Dick Hackett by a mere 142 votes in that historic election in 1991. Herenton would go on to serve five terms before the charter was amended to two consecutive four-year terms for Memphis mayor.

Strickland made history as well. He beat Wharton 2-to-1 in a race that pitted him against a slate of African-American candidates that included Strickland’s council mate Harold Collins and  Mike Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association.

“This is historic,” said Ken Moody, a former Memphis State University basketball standout, city division director under Herenton, and Strickland’s co-campaign manager. “In the words of Dr. King: ‘We are on the move!’”

With all 119 precincts reporting, Strickland amassed 41,810 votes (42 percent) to Wharton’s 22,184 votes (22 percent). Collins garnered 18,481 votes (18 percent) for a third place finish and Williams trailed with 16,174 votes (16 percent). Six other mayoral candidates received 1 percent or less.

Wharton was first elected mayor in a special election in October 2009 to replace Herenton, who vacated the seat after winning his fifth term in office. There were 25 candidates in the race and 61 percent of the electorate sent Wharton to City Hall. He was reelected in 2011 with 65 percent of the vote.

Early returns on Thursday were hampered by glitches in the voting equipment. But after the votes were finally tallied later in the evening, Wharton conceded the race to Strickland after 10 p.m. It was a heart-breaking defeat for Wharton, but he remained composed.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine,” he told his supporters at the Holiday Inn Memphis-University of Memphis.

Wharton’s last day in office is Dec. 31. Strickland will be sworn in as the new mayor of Memphis on Jan. 1, 2016. During the transition period, he’ll start filling key positions in his administration and preparing his new team to govern after he takes the oath of office.

Strickland said his first order of business is to “go after the best possible” chief administrative officer, finance director, human resource director, and police director. “Those are the four most important positions,” he said.

Crime abatement remains a high priority on Strickland’s list of things to do. “Starting Jan. 1,” he said, “I will personally focus on driving down crime every single day and just serving the public. That’s all the public wants.”

African Americans want even more from the mayor-elect. His victory is a mandate to right what they believe is wrong with Memphis and to set the city and their community on a trajectory toward growth and prosperity.

Wharton, on the other hand, failed to persuade the electorate – both black and white – that he has the wherewithal to take the city forward. So based on water cooler conversations in the African American community, a vote for Strickland was more or less a vote against Wharton.

“No matter who won, it was going to be a difficult challenge,” said Strickland. “With 30 percent poverty…with the crime the way it is, with the blight the way it is…it’s going to be hard… but I’m excited about the opportunity to gather a team of quality people to change Memphis.”

“He’ll do what is right for the city of Memphis and the total population. His heart is in the right place,” said Chism, who has known the mayor-elect for more than 20 years.

Because there were snafus that Wharton could not fix or contain within his administration, Chism said he didn’t think people would tolerate from Strickland what they’d tolerated from Wharton.

The mayor-elect understands the delicate position that he’s now confronted with and understands there has to be some bridge building to pull together the diverse communities in Memphis.

“Change is coming to Memphis,” Strickland promised and noted that his work is just beginning to address the serious ills affecting Memphis. “We will build a new administration from the top down to reflect the diversity and richness of this city…

“It doesn’t matter where you were born or what you look like. It doesn’t matter who you are or who you know. It doesn’t matter if you live in Orange Mound or Midtown, South Side or Southwind, I will be everybody’s mayor.”

“His heart is in the right place,” said Kay Smith, the mother of Strickland’s wife, Melyne. “And if anybody can turn it around, he can.”

 Before it was announced that Strickland had won, Smith said she’d prayed for his wisdom, character and integrity to remain the same if he should become mayor.

“I want him to remain who he is,” she said. “I don’t want him to change. He’s a Christian and he was brought up that way.” 

‘Grandma’s Big Vote’ is a clarion call to encourage voting

       Mary Alice Gandy managed to survive the hardships of Jim Crow, but those difficult days paled in comparison to the joy she must have felt after her grandson drove her to the Shelby County Election Commission to early vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

The media swarmed over Mrs. Gandy during that watershed moment. It was her first and only vote for a candidate vying for any elected office, locally or nationally. She was 106 years old then and eager to cast her vote for the soon-to-be first elected African-American president. 

“She always wanted to vote. But because of Jim Crow, she got turned away. She lost her hope; she gave up until she saw advertisements on TV that a black candidate was running for president,” said William A. Gandy Jr., who also registered his grandmother to vote after she tried unsuccessfully in 1960s Mississippi.

Voting brought immense joy to Mrs. Gandy, her grandson said, and an invitation from the Democratic Party to attend the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. But Gandy was convinced that his grandmother was too ill to make the arduous trip. Instead, the two watched the spectacle unfold on TV.

“It brought joy and tears to her eyes,” he said.

The herculean effort on Mrs. Gandy’s part to get out and vote, even in her feeble condition, motivated her grandson to self-publish a children’s book in 2011 titled “Grandma’s Big Vote.” Mrs. Gandy, however, died in 2009 at the age of 108, but not before fulfilling a once-denied, long-awaited, civic responsibility.

“If my grandmother could vote at that age, it means anybody can vote,” said Gandy, driving home the central point of the book. “It’s a civic duty that we should not ignore – especially minorities.”

That year Obama received a groundswell of support from minorities, many of them casting votes for the first time. The surge put Obama over the top compared to the number of minorities supporting Sen. John McCain, the Republican nominee.

According to the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Connecticut, 95 percent of African Americans voted for Obama. Hispanic: 67 percent. Asian: 62 percent. Mrs. Gandy, however, was among those 65 and older voting for Obama. But not many people, her grandson surmised, expected a centenarian to vote.

“It’s a proven fact that democracy works better if people would go out and exercise their right to vote. The world would be different if they did,” he said. “Everybody should exercise their constitutional rights to vote.”

“Grandma’s Big Vote” is an important civic undertaking for Gandy in light of the hullabaloo over the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act of 2013. Voters are now required to show a photo ID as a condition for voting in a federal, state, or local election.

“The courts weakened the Voting Rights Act,” said Gandy, who hopes to change the mindset of people who don’t vote or who are reluctant to take part in the political process. “But I want people to know that they shouldn’t have a problem in voting.”

“The goal is to encourage kids at a young age and adults alike, when they become 18, to register to vote,” added Nathaniel Ray Nolan, a barbeque maven and national marketing director for “Grandma’s Big Vote.” 

Just as importantly, Gandy just wants people to know about his grandmother, the crux of “Grandma’s Big Vote,” which took him about six months to complete. Brian Truesby, a Memphis College of Art graduate, illustrated the book.

Gandy conceived the book in a dream, then put pen to paper. “I woke up at 4 in the morning and started writing the book,” said Gandy, who wrote an accompaniment called “Be The Vote,” a song that can be downloaded for 99 cents on iTunes.

A church musician, Gandy added his voice and soothing music to the 3:47 minute clarion call to attract voters. The lyrics underscore his plea:

“Your mother can be the vote/Anybody can be the vote/Let’s turn out and make a change.”

Gandy is now planning to introduce “Grandma’s Big Vote” to the educators for school-age children in Shelby County Schools. The book, he said, has already been introduced into the school system in Columbus.

With writer-director Larry NuTall, Gandy wrote a play called “Grandma's Big Vote: The Play,” which was performed at the Salvation Army Kroc Center. Actress Mary Woods played the leading role of the aging Mrs. Gandy. The play was filmed and shown – in addition to a voters registration drive – at the Malco Paradisco in 2013.

Gandy expects the movie version to debut next year in February during Black History Month. He already has a title for it – “A Lifetime to Hope.” “It’s going to be about my grandmother’s life and love interest…that she tried to vote but [they] ran her away from the courthouse. The Jim Crow laws in Mississippi.”

Mrs. Gandy, a sharecropper’s widow and descendant of slaves, was born in 1906 on the “Mullin Pratt Plantation” near Columbus, Miss., said Gandy, a self-employed barber. “My grandmother was the matriarch of the family. She was a seamstress and inspired people in the family to be entrepreneurs.”

The narrative that Gandy is drawing from includes other family members as well, such as his father, who died a year before Mrs. Gandy, his mother. Gandy’s mother is still living. He also has seven siblings.

“They totally support me 100 percent,” he said.

It has been seven years since Mrs. Gandy’s maiden vote. Gandy, however, is still trudging along, trying to encourage the electorate to do what his grandmother had waited most of her life to do – and that was VOTE!

“Grandma’s Big Vote” is sold at The Booksellers at Laurelwood. For more information about “Grandma’s Big Vote,” contact William Gandy Jr. at 901-483-9056 or go to www.grandmasbigvote.simdif.com. 

Can Memphis do what Nashville has done and elect a woman mayor?

     

Dr. Sharon A. Webb, the only woman in the 2015 Memphis mayoral race,
faces an uphill battle against formidable opponents. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

       Dr. Sharon A. Webb’s campaign for mayor could end up dead on arrival in the Memphis municipal election on Oct. 8 after failing to resuscitate a poor debate performance at First Congregational Church on July 28.  

Webb is the only woman on the ballot in the mayor’s race and made that point explicitly clear throughout the debate and from that point forward on the campaign trail. “I am the only woman in this race,” she said. “And we need a woman in that office.”

Webb’s point is well taken. But women have not been successful in their bid for the mayor’s job, said attorney Carol Chumney, who ran unsuccessfully for Shelby County mayor in 2002, city mayor in 2007 and again for city mayor in the 2009 special election.

 “I would hope people during some point will give a woman a chance,” said Chumney, a former state legislator and city council member. “We’ve got a lot of qualified women in this city and state. It’s time to break the glass ceiling. All people want is a level playing field.”

The glass ceiling was broken just recently in Nashville when Megan Barry became the first Metro Council member to be elected mayor. She beat David Fox 55 percent to 45 percent after a five-week run-off to become the first female mayor to head the metropolitan government.

But is it pure conjecture or wishful thinking on Webb’s part to believe that she could become the first female mayor of Memphis? Her performance in July, however, just didn’t jell with some voters and drew harsh criticism. To put it kindly, Webb is in a league of her own, one she believes is undergirded by divine intervention.

 “I do believe in miracles,” said Webb, the founder and senior pastor of Life Changing Word Ministries World Center. “I do believe in divine intervention. I feel good about the race. I feel I have just as good a chance as the other candidates.”

So what drives Webb to hedge her bets against four well-financed, politically astute front-runners – Mayor A C Wharton Jr., Councilman Jim Strickland, Councilman Harold Collins, and Mike Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association?

 “The city is going down,” she said. “The city needs to be nurtured back to health. I’m a nurturer. I know how to love the city back to life. Right now, a man doesn’t know how to fix it – and I do. I’m in the trenches every single day. I see what the people need.”

Like Chumney and a field of other contenders, Webb ran for mayor in the 2009 special election. Wharton ultimately won after ending his seven-year tenure as Shelby County mayor. But Webb loss more than she’d bargained for in that race when she drew a blank during a televised forum after she was asked about two actions she would take as mayor.

Webb admits being intimidated by her well-known opponents: Wharton, Councilman Myron Lowery, attorney Charles Carpenter, WWE standout Jerry “The King” Lawler, former school board member Dr. Kenneth T. Whalum Jr., Robert “Mongo” Hodges, former City Council member Wanda Halbert, to name a few.

“During that time I was so afraid,” said Webb. “Fear gripped me and my mind just went blank. It wasn’t that I couldn’t think of an answer, or didn’t know the answer, I just went blank.”

Webb is facing Wharton again and others who are just as formidable and well known. But is she intimidated this time on the campaign trail? Or has she learned to craft her answers to avoid being subjected to mockery and unflattering remarks?   

 “If I didn’t love the people, do you think I would put myself through this again? I care about people, so I can look pass that. The need is greater than what they write or say about me. That’s why I keep moving in spite of the ridicule.”

Despite Webb’s perceived shortcomings – and she admits not being a great debater – Chumney acknowledges Webb’s affability “and a person of faith whose heart is right.” But will these attributes translate into votes and bring her within striking distance of City Hall?

“We’ve had an African-American county mayor, an African-American city mayor, African-American county commissioners and African-American city councilmen and women, but we haven’t had a woman in the mayor’s office,” said Chumney, noting the degree of difficulty for a woman to become the chief executive officer.

There is an exception: Former Shelby County Commissioner Joyce Avery served 45 days as the interim county mayor after Wharton took office at City Hall. Avery made history, but the Commission appointed Joe Ford to fill the remaining nine months of Wharton’s term.  

Former commissioner and businesswoman Deidre Malone, the Democratic nominee for mayor of Shelby County in 2014, tried to wrest the seat from incumbent Republican Mayor Mark H. Luttrell Jr., but she suffered a disappointing loss in the general election.

There are 10 mayoral candidates on the Memphis ballot altogether. But the spotlight hasn’t landed squarely on the so-called lower-tier candidates, which could elevate their profile significantly like the profiles of the big four: Wharton, Strickland, Collins and Williams.

“The media selected four candidates. It’s not fair and it’s not right when there are 10 people in the race,” lamented Webb, who was invited to participate in just a couple of forums or debates although there have been several.

“They didn’t invite me to the forums and debates because they don’t think I’m qualified,” she said. “That’s their choice, but it isn’t right.”

Webb has some political experience. She was elected to the school board of legacy Memphis City Schools and the Memphis Charter Commission, a body that reviewed and suggested changes to the city’s charter.

“It didn’t say you have to have 15 years of government experience,” said Webb, noting that her qualifications to run for mayor put her on the ballot. “When you work in a job or an administration you learn on the job.”

It’s a huge challenge for any woman, Chumney maintains. “Are we holding women to too high standards? Are we sexist? These are questions I grapple with. So how do you break the glass ceiling? You can’t break the glass ceiling unless you run.”

Webb says she’s not discouraged even though huge barriers are blocking her path to City Hall. “I refuse to allow anybody to put me in a box and say what I can’t do. It takes courage to stand up there, to put your name on the list. It takes Jesus.”

It also takes a lot of money to run a successful campaign. “Having $400,000 in your war-chest doesn’t make you a winner. It’s the voters,” said Webb, referencing the huge war chests amassed by the top two contenders, Wharton and Strickland.

“You don’t have to have billboards to win an election,” said Webb, running a grass root campaign instead. “Sometimes it gets hard, but you just get out your Kleenex and keep running. You have to encourage yourself. And I’m going to run to the end.”

Guardian of a radio pioneer's legacy

       

Joan Patterson, the daughter of A.C. "Moohah" Williams, peruses the pages of
her father's scrapbook and other artifacts in her possession and ponders how she
can preserve them for posterity. (Photo: Wiley Henry)

       The black, tattered scrapbook is filled with newspaper clippings, invitations, letters and proclamations from government officials, hand-written notes, and seldom-seen photos chronicling a bygone era that Joan Patterson knows so well.

The collection of artifacts is of cultural and historic significance to Patterson, the daughter of the late legendary Andrew Charles “Moohah” Williams Jr., a trailblazer who left behind an enduring legacy that coincided with WDIA-AM 1070 and a group of Memphis teenagers that he’d taken under his wings.

Known across the Mid-South in those days as “Moohah” – an Indian name meaning “the mighty” – A.C. Williams had indeed become a “mighty” radio announcer who used his influence to shape the careers of others and helped to set WDIA on a trajectory of historic proportions.

The scrapbook is a memoir of sorts and a treasure that Patterson keeps close to her heart. Williams’ contributions to WDIA and his founding of the Teen Town Singers is still the talk of the town among those who watched the announcer work his magic.     

Patterson was in 7^th-grade when her father launched the Teen Town Singers in 1949 shortly after WDIA switched from country and western music to all-black on-air personalities and programming to attract black listeners.

The group disbanded in 1970. Standouts included Carla Thomas, an early star at Stax Records who was crowned “The Queen of Memphis Soul,” and Regina Bennett-West, who would make a pivotal move to Rhythm and Blues and gospel, including an oversees stint with The Platters.

Mark Stansbury, the former assistant to the president of the University of Memphis, was a Teen Town Singer, too. The relationships he’d cultivated since then has kept him on the air at WDIA for 57 years.  

 “When we were the Teen Towners, we were popular with our peers,” said Stansbury, recalling his student days at Booker T. Washington High School when the pianist for the Teen Town Singers, Cathryn Rivers Johnson, urged him to join the group.

“I couldn’t sing, but A.C. Williams saw something in me,” said Stansbury. “He saw other qualities in his students” even if they couldn’t sing as well.

Bennett-West’s father died when she was 11 years old. So Williams, she said, stepped in as her surrogate father, calling him “Daddy,” like most others.

Bennett-West, one of the youngest members then, stayed with the group for 5 years. Her two older sisters, now deceased, sang too. She vaulted from that point in her life and emerged as a recording artist – a well-rounded singer, lyricist and musician. Williams, she said, taught her so much about life.  

Patterson joined the chorale of junior high and high school students from seven schools and sang with them on Saturday mornings at the radio station. Her six-year stint with the group ended after she graduated from Booker T. Washington High School en route to Tennessee State University, her father’s alma mater.

 “He loved working with kids. That was his thing,” said Patterson, who opted to pursue her own path in the world. Radio, she said, just wasn’t her thing. So as her father’s star kept rising at WDIA and in the community that he loved so well, she pursued her own career without the fanfare that surrounded her father.

 “When I would meet people, I wouldn’t tell them that my father was A.C. Williams,” she said. “They (Patterson’s parents) had goals for me. Therefore, I tried to achieve those goals rather than everybody knowing who my father was.”

Getting a good education was germane, and A.C. and Joan P. Williams wouldn’t let their daughter forget it. Williams taught biology at Manassas High School, so Patterson decided that science would take her where she wanted to go in life without the benefit of her father’s burgeoning reputation.

Williams worked at WDIA for 34 years as a D.J. and director of community relations. Twenty-one of those years were spent organizing and directing the Teen Town Singers, an idea that emanated from Manassas, where he’d first organized a boys choir.

According to Williams’ handwritten notes, the idea would come to fruition after listening for some time to a radio program of singing white youth and wondering if he could corral a group of young African American students to do somewhat the same thing.

Writing in the third person to document the origin of the Teen Town Singers, Williams wrote, “Having listened for some time to Young America Sings, he (meaning himself) wondered if some such program could not be done with Negro youth.”

Williams pitched the idea to a program director at WMC-AM in 1947. The program director tossed the idea to other radio stations. But no one was interested – that was until the co-owner of WDIA, Bert Ferguson – who had a similar idea – saw its potential.

Ferguson initially brought in Williams for another type of on-air program. He offered the live glee club show idea to a Matt Garrett, who turned it down. This was the opportunity that Williams needed to pitch the Teen Town Singers to Ferguson, who aired the first program on June 11, 1949.

Much of Patterson’s memories are intertwined with hundreds of Teen Town Singers, whose members – numbering in the hundreds – meet twice a year for a reunion in honor of Williams, WDIA’s first fulltime disc jockey. Williams died Dec. 3, 2004.

During his tenure, Williams developed and promoted other programs as well, including “Feature for A Wonderful Teacher,” “Soul of School Award,” “Top Scholar Program,” “Saturday Night Fish Fry,” “Delta Melodies” and “Wheelin’ on Beale.”

Williams also was instrumental in the success of WDIA’s “Goodwill Revue,” a Christmastime show promoting the best gospel, blues, R&B, and soul performers in the nation, and the “Starlight Revue,” both charitable causes.

Stansbury credits Williams and other WDIA luminaries – such as Nat. D. Williams, the first African American to host a show on the station, and Theo “Bless My Bones” Wade – with helping to create a pathway for him in radio.

 “I spun the records for Nat D., A.C., Theo Wade and others,” said Stansbury, pointing out that the aforementioned pioneers taught him a lot about the business while making significant contributions in radio.

The memories are sweet – unforgettable – for Patterson who, from time to time, reflects on the life and legacy of her father. The scrapbook is just a snapshot of his life and a transport back to her youth in the Williams household.

“They were regular folks,” Patterson said about her parents. “Dad was a teacher and Mom was a Girl Scout leader. Both were religious people. They were pretty good parents who led by example. So I had a pretty decent childhood.”

Her mother could sing, too, she said. “She had a voice like Marian Anderson,” one of the most celebrated contraltos of the 20^th Century.

But it was her father’s voice on WDIA that reverberated near and far and helped to change the course of a once failing radio station.

“I always knew I had to share my father,” said Patterson. “But I didn’t mind sharing him with others.”

Now she’s trying to find the best way to preserve her father’s storied collection. Until then, she’s settling for being the guardian.

‘Shifting’ defines The LEAP Summit

LEAP (Leaders, Entrepreneurs and Pastors) is the brainchild of hosts
Apostle Ricky Floyd and his wife, Pastor Sheila Floyd.

       Eliminating negative images and unfavorable perceptions of inner-city churches – and recasting them as worship centers with dominion and authority over every segment of one’s life – is the impetus behind The LEAP Summit (Aug. 26-29) at the Pursuit of God Transformation Center (POG), 3171 Signal St.

LEAP (Leaders, Entrepreneurs and Pastors) is the brainchild of hosts Apostle Ricky Floyd and his wife, Pastor Sheila Floyd, who envision the church with greater authority, keen vision, solid principles, and a church, he said, that is in need of a cultural makeover.

“So the vision of LEAP is to awaken the church,” Floyd said.

Floyd will kick off the summit next Wednesday at 7 p.m. Dr. Samuel R. Chand, a leadership architect and consultant, author, change strategist and speaker based in Stockbridge, Ga., and Bishop E.L. Warren, pastor of The Amazing Cathedral of Worship in Quincy, Ill., will be the luncheon speakers Thursday at noon. Dr. Chand also will deliver a 7 p.m. message.

Dr. Stacey Spencer, senior pastor of New Direction Christian Church, will speak Friday at 10 a.m. and Bishop Warren will follow with a message at 7 p.m. Empowerment workshops will take place both Friday and Saturday.

Workshops start at 10:45 a.m. and again at 7 p.m. Don Hutson, a global expert on sales and negotiations and author of the New York Times best selling book “One Minute Entrepreneur,” will be the luncheon speaker at noon on Saturday.

Workshop speakers include the Rev. Rhonda Pettigrew, co-pastor of Destiny Church in Jackson, Tenn.; Sam Garrett, CEO of Madison Line Records in Memphis; Myron Mays, radio talk show host and social media guru; Charlie Caswell, author and community activist; Elder Maryilyn Parker of Greater Faith City of Love in St. Louis; and Apostle Tony Wilson, entrepreneur coordinator for Mid-South Community College.

Other workshop speakers include Dr. Tonya Lyons, owner of New Image Family Dentistry and co-founder of Rock Church Memphis; the Rev. Darryl Hilliard, pastor of Rhema Word and Worship Church in Brookhaven, Miss.; recording artist Antonio Neal; and Brennan Hill, The New Tri-State Defender’s digital content manager.

There’s more: Sylvia “Monique” Reed, a consultant for Arbonne Essentials; Shelia Floyd, LEAP’s co-host and POG’s co-pastor; Bishop Gerald Patterson, pastor of Words of Faith Deliverance Ministries in Tupelo, Miss.; and state Rep. Antonio Parkinson (Dist. 98).

There is a registration fee to attend the summit. Night sessions, however, are free.

“The Lord had given me a vision probably about 6 or 7 years ago, that the only way there’s going to be a change in the community is that you have to get the seven Ps together: Pastors, Principals, Policemen, Parents, Politicians, Partners and Proprietors,” said Floyd.

He equates the seven Ps with the seven kingdoms in the Bible.

“Whoever rules these kingdoms will rule the world,” he said. “These seven kingdoms are Business, Politics, Arts and Entertainment, Family, Religion, Education and Media.”

The church, he said, has no authority over the “seven kingdoms.” LEAP is the vehicle to bring his vision to fruition. “The church is supposed to have dominion,” he said. “So God has allowed me to bring together an assembly that I call the most “brilliant minds….”

Floyd said the church is converting people, but the people are returning to a reprobated mindset and lifestyle. “If we don’t create a culture to sustain what we have converted,” he said, “his old culture will call him back.”

The Pursuit of God Transformation Center is an internationally known church nestled in the heart of the Frayser community, where Floyd has become an instrument for change. A second campus is located in the Uptown community at 114 Henry St.

“Touching, teaching and transforming lives” is a mantra that defines Floyd and his vision and a prerequisite for launching LEAP. “We’re concerned about the whole man,” he said. “We’re concerned about your health, your economics, your finances.”

Floyd said he didn’t launch LEAP to hype the people. “LEAP is a help event,” he said. “It’s not a shout event. This is a shifting event. This event is designed to teach you, to inspire you and even to give you divine connections.”

Although LEAP emanates from Frayser, Floyd said, “I’m in Frayser, but my assignment is not limited to Frayser. My assignment is to family, business and the church. That’s why I’m bringing this together.”

(For additional information about The LEAP Summit, contact Apostle Ricky Floyd or Pastor Sheila Floyd at 901-353-57724. Registration is available at www.thepursuitofGod.org.)