The Light of Memphis

Towards the end of my senior year in high school, I competed for a scholarship here at Rhodes, and on an application I was asked a question that has stuck with me as an avid lover of Memphis, my hometown. I thought it’d be interesting to duel my responses between when I had only a surface level high school education and then having a concentrated study of civil rights. Here was the question:

Some have stated that the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King has stunted the progress of our city, but Mayor AC Wharton refers to Memphis as a "city on the move." What do you believe is the future of Memphis in light of its difficult past?

Pre-History 242: “I wholeheartedly agree with Mayor Wharton and disagree with the conjecture that we are held back by the death of Dr. Martin Luther King.  Dr. King left us with these words: “…I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” Dr. King left us with optimism and hope for the United States, including Memphis. The only cause of  Memphis’s stagnation is our own selves. We haven’t, as a community, grasped the hope of Dr. King and fully accepted his call to action. Memphis has a bright future with ethical leaders and a supportive population with a common goal of Memphis being a city of model stability. The key to actually achieving that goal, however, is being aware of Memphis’s past and not living in it.”

Post History 242: I have a couple of criticisms for this question. 1) We have discussed the obsession and commitment to the larger narrative of African American history, Dr. Martin Luther King’s death being the assumed peak of African American History. It is not an accurate or fair to condense this nation’s history to one event, making Memphis a stunted city. 2) We don’t discuss how Memphis still resides in that history. A good example is the apparent favoritism and discrimination in this city’s school systems. Per the Tennessee Department of Education report card of the 2011- 2012 school year (http://edu.reportcard.state.tn.us/pls/apex/f?p=200:1:3598217713481567),  Memphis City Schools(MCS) , the more urban school system had 94,629 student promotions versus Shelby County Schools (SCS) , the suburban school system, promoting only 44,312 students. The problem is that in MCS there were 4,361 expulsions beating SCS’s 64 expulsions. Now, we can attribute some of MCS’s student promotions versus SCS’s to the majority in population but when we consider 4297 student expulsion lead Memphis has on Shelby County, it is apparent that Memphis City Schools System does not take as much pride in educating their students as Shelby County does. The top tier officers of education in Memphis have, at some point, lost hope in the urban students of color and not made educating students a priority verses the anterior goal of simply letting students pass. So, simply, Memphis’s light is re-calibrating our education system’s priorities and goals. Though this statement has been used a lot, these kids are the future and if we don’t align them on a path towards knowledge, that light will implode like a dying star.