NCRM Assembles a Panel to Discuss Police Violence and Accountability

MSNBC’s Joy Reid (center) moderates a panel discussion on police
violence and accountability on March 30 at the National Civil Rights 
Museum, which includes panelists Cheryl Dorsey (left) and Atty. 
Benjamin Crump. (Photos by Wiley Henry) 

Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (right) holds court with 
the parents of Tyre Nichols, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, after
the panel discussion. They joined the panel as well.

MEMPHIS, TN – The tragic death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of Memphis police officers provided the impetus for a panel discussion on overzealous policing and accountability on March 30 at the National Civil Rights Museum. 

Moderated by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, a political analyst, and the host of “The Reid Out,” the panelists kicked off the first of a four-part national convening entitled “The Reckoning, The Resolve, The Restoration, and The Resilience.” 

Panelists Benjamin Crump, RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, Cheryl Dorsey, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, and Alex S. Vitale addressed “The Reckoning,” a focus on community policing and accountability.

“Historically, we’ve seen victims of violence by law enforcement, not only Rodney King and George Floyd, but here in Memphis – from Larry Payne to Elton Hayes to Tyre Nichols,” said NCRM President Dr. Russ Wigginton at the apex of the panel discussion. 

“It is a longstanding legacy of abuse and injustice,” he said, adding, “We’re seeking solutions to ridding society of injustice today.”

“We can talk about this issue in theory. You have to live it in fact,” said Reid, referring to RowVaughn and Rodney Wells, and asked: “What does reform look like to you?”

“Police officers should treat people as equals,” said RowVaughn Wells, noting that too many Black and brown people are being murdered by police officers. “I’m not understanding why this keeps happening.”

Rodney Wells sees the problem as a lack of accountability. “The police officers, whether they’re Black, brown, green or yellow, need to be held accountable for their actions,” he said.

He added that too many parents in America are going through the same thing that his family is going through – such as losing a loved one to police violence. 

“We don’t need immunity for officers when they’re doing something wrong,” Rodney Wells said.

A grand jury indicted the five Black officers on multiple charges in the death of Tyre Nichols, including second degree murder. The MPD responded swiftly and fired the officers.

“That tells us that there is something deeply and systemically wrong,” Reid said. “It’s not just about hiring more Black officers.”

Vitale recalled the police-involved shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014 as a point of reference.

“We’ve tried a lot of things,” he said. “Those officers…a lot of them had body cameras. They’ve had the diversity hiring. They’ve had the special training.” 

It hasn’t made a difference, said Vitale, a noted professor who spent more than 30 years writing about policing and consulting police departments and human rights organizations internationally.

Is there a certain militarization of police departments, even though more Black officers are among the ranks?

“Certainly, there’s a militarization of police departments,” said Dorsey, a retired Los Angeles Police Department sergeant, author, and human rights activist. “There are 18,000 police departments across the country, and they move and act similarly.” 

The job is not for everybody, she said. “I can take race out of it. These officers were drunk with power…It’s important and imperative that they are held accountable.”

Even though the MPD moved quickly to hold the officers accountable in Tyre Nichols’ death, Dorsey said, “[Memphis Police Chief] C.J. Davis gets no brownie points from me.”

Crump is often referred to as “Black America’s attorney general.” As the legal counsel for the Wells family, he said, “We understand policing in America. It started out as the slave patrol. Not much has changed.” 

He said his office is inundated with calls about police brutality. “The police just beat Black and brown people every day,” he said.

Reid queried Vitale about monetary settlements and whether the spotlight on savage beatings by the police changes anything.

Vitale, however, lauded Crump and other attorneys for “getting the details, exposing the lies, and shinning a bright light” on police misconduct. 

“The sad reality is that monetary settlements do not produce the kind of changes that we hope they would,” he said, and turned a critical eye to the mayor’s office.

“The mayor of Memphis [Jim Strickland] does not have a real plan to address the violence,” Vitale opined.

Since politics was addressed at this juncture in the discussion, Reid turned to Lee, the Texas congresswoman who co-sponsored the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.

“When is America going to be able to openingly [sic]…be able to confront just the simple premise of fairness?” said Lee, and highlighted a few provisions in the reform bill, such as data collection and money for training.

“The whole issue is the [political] climate. We’re frozen in time,” she said. “Because of the climate, what will happen politically? Who will rise up?” 

The reform bill passed in the Democratic-controlled House that year but was opposed by the Republicans in the Senate. 

“We need to push for it to be passed out of the Senate,” said Lee, whose party is now in the minority. “I will say conspicuously, the challenges are immense.”

Min. Suhkara Yahweh ‘Stood Up for all Injustices’

 

Min. Suhkara A. Yahweh, formerly known as Lance “Sweet 
Willie Wine” Watson, sat for an interview in 2019 for a story 
about his life’s work. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – On Aug. 26, 1969, an angry white mob in Forrest City, Ark., tried to beat the life out of Min. Suhkara A. Yahweh while leading a peaceful “Walk Against Fear” from West Memphis to Little Rock, Ark.

He told the story many times and marked the 50^th anniversary of his near-death experience after returning to Forrest City to keynote a Civil Rights Commemoration Program on Aug. 17, 2019.

Yahweh died March 25 at Methodist University Hospital in Memphis after a brief illness. He was 84. 

Wherever there was injustice and racial upheaval, Yahweh was there in the thick of it during the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. Though age had slowed his pace in recent years, he was still active as much as he could. 

Min. Patricia Lee, an author, publisher, activist, and caregiver, said she was one of the last persons to visit Yahweh, who was known at the onset of his freedom fighting days as Lance “Sweet Willie Wine” Watson. 

Yahweh had billed himself as a civil rights and human rights activist, and a political and social engineer. According to his vitae, he’d worked with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Fannie Lou Hammer, Stokely Carmichael, Andrew Young, and other activists and trailblazers.

“The hospital called me to let me know that someone needed to be at the hospital. That was on March 25,” said Lee, who’d taken food to Yahweh earlier that day. Later that evening, she got the dreaded call.

Lee had known Yahweh for nine years. They penned a book together entitled “The Progression of a Man: The Man, the Mission and the Legacy.” Published in 2021, the book highlights Yahweh’s life’s work as a freedom fighter.

“I’m just glad to be acquainted with such a giant and legend,” said Lee, who was often seen accompanying Yahweh to events. “I’m so glad to be under his tutelage, even though I wasn’t the best student.” 

Lee said Yahweh was the epitome of love and unity. “He had a great love for humanity and for the people.”

Dr. Coby Smith agreed and added: “He was incomparable as an organizer. He brought a lot of talent and people to the movement. He had a unique talent. That energy was with him to the end.”

Smith is a noted activist, educator, and co-founder of The Invaders, a local 1960s militant civil rights group. He first met Yahweh when he was in grade school and Yahweh was in high school at Manassas in the late 1950s. 

Yahweh once served time in prison and changed his life after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Smith noted. Yahweh assumed the leadership of The Invaders in 1969 when he was 31 years old.

“Min. Suhkara was committed to change and wasn’t afraid to tell anybody about it,” Smith said. “People benefited from his intellect and energy. There were a lot of people who were important in the movement, who got their information from Min. Suhkara.”

He said Memphis should be indebted to Yahweh.

Jabril Jabez was at Carnes Elementary School when he first met Yahweh in North Memphis. Like Smith, he remembers Yahweh as a very good dancer. “Some of the guys would gather in front of the grocery store and dance,” he said.

After Jabez was discharged from the military in 1968, he returned to Memphis and eventually joined The Invaders. He met Smith and became reacquainted with Yahweh “when the group got kind of unraveled.”

The Invaders leadership was basically in jail, he said. Yahweh, however, “was out front” and fearless. “He was a big brother to me,” Jabez said.

Yahweh was out-front, for example, when he maintained security and assisted in building Resurrection City in Washington D.C., and the success of the “Poor People’s Campaign” of 1968.

When he assisted the LeMoyne-Owen Student Government in taking over the college in 1970.

When he marched from Memphis to Jackson, Miss., to support then-Ambassador Andrew Young after he was forced to resign for talking with Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

When he marched in Tupelo, Miss., after a Black man was hung after it was reported that the man had hung himself while his hands were bound behind his back.

Yahweh was essentially out-front during a plethora of demonstrations, marches, and protests throughout the years. 

“This was a man who knew no boundaries,” Smith said.

“He stood up for all injustices,” Lee added.

Said Yahweh to a reporter in 2019: “My fingerprints are all over Memphis, Atlanta, Mississippi, Jackson, Carolina, Washington, D.C.”

Min. Yahweh’s wake is Friday, April 7, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Superior Funeral Home, 460 E. McLemore. The funeral is Saturday, April 8 at 11 a.m., at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, 491 E. McLemore.  

Meeting to Discuss a Third Political Party Draws Scant Support for Now

Dr. Carnita Atwater tries to drum up support for a third political party
that she's calling The People's Party. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – Candidates vying for the office of Memphis mayor, city court clerk and all 13 city council districts will stump for votes leading up to the Memphis Municipal Election on Oct. 5.

Dr. Carnita Atwater, however, is miffed with the election process and the two-party system. On March 5, she organized a “political consortium” at The Kukutanna African American History and Cultural Museum in North Memphis to discuss “the root issues of our democracy.”

Much to Atwater’s chagrin, the consortium drew a sparse crowd of 30 people to the first public meeting to discuss the mechanics of legitimizing a third political party that she’s temporarily calling “The People’s Party.” 

“I invited whites, Blacks, Jews and Hispanics. Why didn’t they come?” Atwater asked those in attendance listening intently as she expounded on the need to introduce a third party.

“My own political party did not embrace me when I ran for governor,” said Atwater, who loss the Democratic primary last year. “I learned that we have a problem in our political party. So, we have to write our own narrative.”

Atwater said the idea of launching a new political party was birthed a year ago with at least 25 founding members that she would not name. She’s keeping the names a secret for now.

Because The People’s Party is still in its infancy stage, Atwater urged anyone who is disenchanted with the two-party system to help her build the organization. She plans to have it up and running nationally within six months. 

“If you’re tired of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, come on,” she beckoned. “We’re going to embrace you. We’re going to be a political party with integrity.”

The party will also be identified by its mascot – a rooster. “Roosters are the forgotten animals, like the poor people, the LGBTQ people, the transgender people,” Atwater said. “They have thrown these people away.”

Atwater said no one political party should dictate who is important. “Our party will invest in every citizen,” she said, and stressed that PAC (Political Action Committee) money will not be accepted. 

Dorothy Cooper commended Atwater on implementing an “excellent idea.” 

“It’s outstanding – the layout. But it’s a lot of work,” said Cooper, president of the NAACP in Crittenden County, Ark., and the former mayor of Turrell, a city in Arkansas, also in Crittenden County.

“I’ve always loved a challenge,” Atwater replied.

In her take on the emergence of a new political party, Reasal Catron said accountability is very important to her. “Your word is your bond,” she added. “Politicians need to be accountable.”

A prophetess and advocate for domestic violence victims and inmates that she opines are unfairly treated in the penal system, Catron said she’s not seeing the work from politicians. 

“Don’t tell me about what you’ve done, tell me what you’re doing now,” she said.

Catron is simply disillusioned with politicians and reluctant to vote for them unless they earn her vote.

“If someone wants me to come out of my house and wants me to vote for them, I want to see change,” she said. “We need representation all over.”

Atwater said if people believe in the message espoused by politicians, “they will vote for you.” 

She pointed to the more than 56,000 votes that she amassed in the gubernatorial primary as proof that her message about homelessness, poverty, and economic disparities resonated with voters.

Ann Yates added: “People will vote if they feel like they belong.”

A longtime business owner, Yates said the two parties have forgotten about people. “They don’t go into the neighborhoods and talk to people,” she said.

Atwater said “the people” will select the candidate instead of the party. 

She loathed the number of candidates who joined this year’s Memphis mayoral race as an example that too many contenders can thwart opportunities for the best candidate to win. 

“There should be a consensus candidate,” she said.

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.

Master Chef Takes Cooking to a Higher Level

 

Fried catfish plate served at The Grilled Asparagus. 

MEMPHIS, TN – The little quaint restaurant sizzles on the inside where succulent cuisine is artfully created by a master chef – like DaVinci painting the “Mona Lisa,” for example. 

The cuisine is just as much a work of art as it whets the appetite. The master chef is Christopher E. Beavers. The quaint little restaurant, which Beavers is the sole proprietor, is called The Grilled Asparagus.

“It goes back to the name culinary arts. It is the art of cooking,” Beavers explained.   

Located at one end of a strip of small businesses, The Grilled Asparagus is south of Crosstown Concourse at 431 North Cleveland Street and Autumn Avenue, where the small businesses thrive.

The building’s exterior is painted charcoal gray; its facade is nondescript. But the aroma of mouth-watering food wafts within the cozy and elegant space. A sign bearing the name of the restaurant hangs overhead.

The Grilled Asparagus serves an array of dishes between soul food and specialized entrées that one may find on the menu at four-star restaurants. Whatever your palate craves – vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian – Beavers makes it happen.

In addition to the succulent meals that he prepares at the restaurant, Beavers is a well-known chef who personally cooks for celebrities, judges, attorneys, doctors, and others. His clientele varies. 

He is a culinary artist per se whose kitchen skills were sought by the late Bud Davis of Bud Davis Cadillac of Memphis, the late Lorenzen Wright and Rudy Gay, former standouts for the Memphis Grizzlies.

“My longest tenure was when I was a personal chef for the Memphis Grizzlies,” he said.

Beavers served as the personal chef for the Grizzlies for four years and R&B singers Anita Baker and Ginuwine. He also cooked for other NBA players, coaches, community leaders, Memphis City Schools, and politicians.

The Reeves Law Firm in Memphis is currently a client. “We provide food for them daily,” he said.

Beavers has built a steady clientele of celebrities whose taste buds vary as much as the diverse dishes he serves. But then he would like to attract more blue-collar workers and young people to the restaurant.

Not too many young people, he said. Either way, he’s familiar with various dishes when cooking for both celebrities and blue-collar workers.

“It’s kind of hard to find that medium,” he said, “where you’re attracting the clientele that I’ve built up, but also attract this new crowd that has money to spend.” 

So, what is Beavers’ style of cooking? “It's kind of hard to peg a particular style or class of cooking,” he said, choosing instead to be versatile and consistent when cooking for his clients. 

“I used to say versatility and creativity. But [the] clientele doesn’t want creativity, they want consistency. They don’t want a new macaroni and cheese; they want the same one from last year.”

Beavers’ interest in cooking began when he was a child growing up on Seventh Street in North Memphis. He graduated from Manassas High School in 1994 and chose to pursue a career in cooking.

“I just wanted to learn how to cook. It always interested me,” he said. “When I graduated from high school, I got a chance to go to culinary school. That’s how I got my culinary chef certification.”

Beavers earned his culinary arts degree from Kittrell Culinary School in Henderson, North Carolina, where he learned to develop his own unique style and flair. Then he began serving as a sous chef in five-star kitchens throughout Memphis.

“I became an entrepreneur in 2010, but I didn’t get a brick and mortar until 2019,” he said, referring to his little quaint restaurant, The Grilled Asparagus.

Success is not guaranteed, he said, although he’s been quite success thus far. But not all chefs are rated the same.

“I would say that more people underestimate how challenging being a chef is,” said Beavers, “even people who go to a culinary school to become a chef. They underestimate the tenacity, the strength that you’re going to [need] to do it every day.” 

Beavers said if a chef is cooking for hundreds, or thousands, it’s got to be right.

“You have to have the gift of taste to get it right,” he said. “It takes some intangible gifts to do this on a high level.”

Chef Christopher E. Beavers can be reached at 901-406-8581.