Come back for hourly updates as Memphis remembers King’s dream and legacy

7:23 p.m.

MLK50 is on the ground covering a protest at Springdale and Howell where a black teenager was shot and killed by store clerk after allegedly stealing a beer.

Dorian Harris, 17, was killed on Thursday for allegedly stealing a beer from Top Stop Shop on Springdale and Howell in Memphis, TN. Anwar Ghazali, 28, allegedly chased Harris and shot him. Victim’s body wasn’t found until Saturday.

Protestors are demanding the store be shut down.

— Kirstin L. Cheers and Micaela Watts

4:50 p.m.

Sitting outside the National Civil Rights Museum Monday afternoon were several members of the UAW National Advisory Council on Civil & Human Rights, in Memphis for a UAW conference.

“We were with him in the beginning and we stand with him now,” said Pam Davidson of Galesburg, Illinois, a union member at a John Deere plant.

Here’s what King said in an address delivered at the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO.

“Negroes are almost entirely a working people,” King said. “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs — decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.

“That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”

— Wendi C. Thomas

4:12 p.m.

A mass e-mail sent to the Memphis Police Department clergy school graduates Sunday night warning its recipients that there may be disruptions at the I-40 bridge junction at Riverside, the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center (201 Poplar), and Graceland.

“Disturbingly, I received some information circling the internet that threatens that peace. It seems that individuals are planning some disruptions on April 3, 2018 in our city at various locations; 201 Poplar, Graceland, and the Hernando-Desoto Bridge,” wrote MPD officer Tadario A. Holmes.

“The reasons for these disruptions, in our knowledge, have no direct connection to Memphis. It is our goal and duty to keep Memphis safe and at peace for everyone.”

“I am urging you, all clergy, to strongly encourage your congregants and public alike, to stay away from these activities, to help maintain peace and order in our city.”

On Saturday, the Coalition of Concerned Citizens met with local activists to plan their “rolling block party” — a multi-stop tour of high-traffic/visibility sites, including 201 Poplar, Graceland and the Interstate 40 bridge, where more than 1,000 protesters converged in July 2016 to protest the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

— Micaela Watts

3:43 p.m.

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is not satisfied at the state of the country.

Former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder stands on the balcony of room 206, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. Photo by J. Dylan Sandifer.

During his keynote speech on day one of a two-day symposium at the Peabody Hotel, Holder spoke of the impact Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy had on

his life and how it informs work left to be done. Now working with the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, he spoke of voter suppression, women’s rights and lessons learned from Parkland, Fla., teens advocating for better gun laws.

“The fact that Dr. King’s strength was rooted in frustration — just as much as in faith — is a great comfort to me. I say that because as proud as I am of our country, my country, and as grateful as I feel for the progress we’ve made and the opportunities the civil rights movement made available to me, the truth is: Like Dr. King, I am dissatisfied,” said Holder at a packed luncheon sponsored by the National Civil Rights Museum and the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law.

“I am dissatisfied that, every day in America, 46 children and teenagers are shot.

“I am dissatisfied that, in our nation’s lowest-income neighborhoods, only 4 percent of black children have a father at home; and that one in five of the black boys born in these neighborhoods end up in our criminal justice system.

“I am dissatisfied that economic progress remains uneven, that educational opportunity is far from uniform, and that, in the face of these facts, simply acknowledging that “black lives matter, too” is controversial.”

Elected officials from across the country attended, including Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL), former Memphis Mayor AC Wharton, former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy and Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), among others.

— Deborah Douglas

3:00 p.m.

With an assist by civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, local clergy gathered Monday at the recently shuttered Kroger grocery store on Lamar Avenue to condemn the grocery chain for closing two locations in an economically depressed area where fresh food is already hard to come by.

“It’s reprehensible,” said Christian Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop E. Lynn Brown. “They’ve been in Memphis for 70 years, in (the Orange Mound)

Rev. Jesse Jackson came out in support of Memphis clergy condemning Kroger for closing two stores in poor communities. By Micaela Watts.

community for 33 years, and it’s a shame for them to leave community members without (grocery access).”

Citing millions of dollars in losses, Kroger announced in January that they would be closing their Lamar location and another store at 1977 South Third in the Southgate shopping center.

Residents in the two Memphis communities affected by the closures — South Memphis and Orange Mound — are already food insecure, according to data compiled by the United States Department of Agriculture. The closures make finding fresh food and produce even harder for area residents, many of whom are low-income with little access to public transportation.

Jackson, in town for the 50th anniversary commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, told MLK50 that he was compelled to support local clergy in taking Kroger to task because he believes the push for basic human rights, including access to food, should not still be an active struggle.

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” said Jackson. “We were here 50 years ago for people to have access to health care and food where they live today.”

Local community organizer Patricia Roberts pointed out that it’s not just the loss of a grocery store.

“That Kroger had a bank, it had a pharmacy, it had speciality items that you can’t get anywhere else,” said Roberts. “People in this area who don’t have a car … that was their one-stop-shop.”

Since Kroger announced the two closures, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church clergy have been holding routine community meetings, hoping to get more answers from Kroger regarding the closures. Community members are also hoping to court another grocery provider into the closed locations.

Roberts said the group may eventually go beyond talks. “Kroger has boycotted the black community, maybe it’s time for us to boycott them.”

— Micaela Watts

2:35 p.m.

The anti-poverty initiative The Collective, aimed at young adults, has launched its MLK50 video series highlighting their stories. The organization, in a press release, said, “As a city, Memphis still has some of the highest child poverty rates in the country and 45,000 young adults who are out of work school. Indeed if anyone has the answers, it is our young. And as Dr. King said, “Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” This week, we highlight the voices, stories and experiences of our young adults today to learn from them and reflect on the way forward. To follow this project, follow us The Collective. To see the videos and more, go to www.changeiscollective.org/mlk50.

— Peggy McKenzie

2:24 p.m.

MLK50 offers kudos for companies that filled out the #LivingWage wage survey

Meanwhile, on social media, MLK50’s Twitter maven Kirstin Cheers has started thanking the companies that would said whether they paid workers enough to live on. Stay tuned for our… ahem… feedback for those who didn’t respond to our survey. Follow us at MLK50 Memphis.

—Wendi C. Thomas

1 p.m.

Rosie Carter stood in Mason Temple where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” his final speech, as a recording of it filled the air. It gave her goose bumps.

“This is so powerful, I mean to actually stand where he stood,” Carter said.

She was one of dozens who arrived early at the historic site, where King spoke on April 3, 1968, while supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers, saying “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.”

Rosie Carter stood in Mason Temple where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech. The temple is the site of the “I AM 2018 Mountaintop Conference.” Photo by Kevin McKenzie.

King was assassinated the following day at the Lorraine Motel.

The union that supported the strike and represents the workers to this day, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, opens its “I AM 2018 Mountaintop Conference” today at Mason Temple.

The conference includes several panel discussions through Tuesday and remarks by AFSCME and Church of God in Christ leaders. Registration for the conference and passes were required, causing some confusion, as Memphis police blocked streets surrounding the building at 930 Mason.

— Kevin McKenzie

Noon

King’s daughter to be at museum Monday afternoon

The Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King will be part of the new MLK Remembered exhibit at #NCRM, to be previewed Monday. The youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a Baptist minister and well-known speaker and

The Rev. Dr. Bernice King

defender of her father’s legacy, often battling her two brothers, Martin Luther King III and Dexter, in court over both memories and memorabilia. (Her sister Yolanda died in 2007.) In 1993, she energized the crowd at a MLK Day celebration, “It is not enough to say that we marched with Dr. King. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing now?’”

Her views on LGBT rights have evolved; she split from her mother’s belief that there was a link between the civil rights movement and LGBT rights, marching against marriage equality in Georgia in 2004. After the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that granted same-sex couples the right to marry, though, she issued a statement that said, in part, “It is my sincere prayer … that (the ruling) encourages the global community to respect and embrace all LGBT global citizens with dignity and love.”

— Leanne Kleinmann

10 a.m., April 2

MLK50 commemoration activities are booked up as political leaders, journalists and others from around the country pour into Downtown Memphis to attend events in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Yet, in the impoverished South Memphis neighborhood just blocks away from the museum and Clayborn Temple, from where King led the sanitation workers’ march in 1968, residents say the celebrations are not for them. Read the story here.

Nate Henderson, 38, sits on an abandoned lot with view of Clayborn Temple. Photo by J. Dylan Sandifer

10 a.m., Sunday, April 1

Jesse Jackson: Memphis perfect symbol for working poor

Asthe Rev. Jesse L. Jackson tells it, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not in the best of moods before he pivoted and came to Memphis. King wondered aloud whether he should give up leading the civil rights movement, maybe write books and assume the presidency of a college.

“He couldn’t quit,” Jackson told a packed Easter Sunday congregation at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Midtown Sunday. “Rosa Parks didn’t quit. Frederick Douglass didn’t quit. Harriet Tubman didn’t quit.”

In what Jackson described as a “burst,” King decided to come to Memphis. There, sanitation workers were fighting for a living wage and safer working

Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Memphis. Photo by Deborah Douglas.

conditions. Two of their co-workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, had been crushed in a faulty garbage truck on Feb. 1, 1968. They’d had enough and were willing to risk everything to fight for dignity and better pay.

For King, Memphis was the perfect symbol for the working poor across the country, including Appalachian white workers to Latino farmworkers out West. If folks could find common ground “the world would change,” Jackson said.

Linking King’s admonition in 1963 that “this is no time for apathy or complacency,” Jackson drew a historic through-line to modern social justice movements. He included the fight for a living wage and women’s rights, specifically evoking Planned Parenthood’s fight for women’s agency and health care access. He called out teen leaders from Marjory Stoneman High School Parkland, Florida, leading the call for gun control as evidence that “tomorrow is today,” as King said in his famous “fierce urgency of now”remarks.

— Deborah Douglas

This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit reporting project on economic justice in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by the Center for Community Change and the Surdna Foundation.

A solemn visit to Mason Temple

Follow us all day and come back for hourly updates

1 p.m.

Rosie Carter stood in Mason Temple where Dr. Martin Luther King delivered “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” his final speech, as a recording of it filled the air. It gave her goose bumps.

“This is so powerful, I mean to actually stand where he stood,” Carter said.

She was one of dozens who arrived early at the historic site, where King spoke on April 3, 1968, while supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers, saying “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.”

King was assassinated the following day at the Lorraine Motel.

The union that supported the strike and represents the workers to this day, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, opens its “I AM 2018 Mountaintop Conference” today at Mason Temple.

The conference includes several panel discussions through Tuesday and remarks by AFSCME and Church of God in Christ leaders. Registration for the conference and passes were required, causing some confusion, as Memphis police blocked streets surrounding the building at 930 Mason.

Rosie Carter stood in Mason Temple where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech. The temple is the site of the “I AM 2018 Mountaintop Conference.” Photo by Kevin McKenzie.

Carter, 62, said she is a member of AFSCME Local 1215 in Chicago and is a clerk at the city’s Harold Washington library branch.

Fifty years after King’s death, she sees progress. “We’re in a better place, but we could be better,” Carter said. “But we have come a long way because black kids and white kids are going to school together. People are getting married and there’s no big problems. We are much, much better with that,” she said.

— Kevin McKenzie

Noon

Asthe Rev. Jesse L. Jackson tells it, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was not in the best of moods before he pivoted and came to Memphis. King wondered aloud whether he should give up leading the civil rights movement, maybe write books and assume the presidency of a college.

“He couldn’t quit,” Jackson told a packed Easter Sunday congregation at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Midtown Sunday. “Rosa Parks didn’t quit. Frederick Douglass didn’t quit. Harriet Tubman didn’t quit.”

In what Jackson described as a “burst,” King decided to come to Memphis. There, sanitation workers were fighting for a living wage and safer working

Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Memphis. Photo by Deborah Douglas.

conditions. Two of their co-workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, had been crushed in a faulty garbage truck on Feb. 1, 1968. They’d had enough and were willing to risk everything to fight for dignity and better pay.

For King, Memphis was the perfect symbol for the working poor across the country, including Appalachian white workers to Latino farmworkers out West. If folks could find common ground “the world would change,” Jackson said.

Linking King’s admonition in 1963 that “this is no time for apathy or complacency,” Jackson drew a historic through-line to modern social justice movements. He included the fight for a living wage and women’s rights, specifically evoking Planned Parenthood’s fight for women’s agency and health care access. He called out teen leaders from Marjory Stoneman High School Parkland, Florida, leading the call for gun control as evidence that “tomorrow is today,” as King said in his famous “fierce urgency of now”remarks.

— Deborah Douglas

Noon

The Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King will be part of the new MLK Remembered exhibit at #NCRM, to be previewed Monday. The youngest daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is a Baptist minister and well-known speaker and

The Rev. Dr. Bernice King

defender of her father’s legacy, often battling her two brothers, Martin Luther King III and Dexter, in court over both memories and memorabilia. (Her sister Yolanda died in 2007.) In 1993, she energized the crowd at a MLK Day celebration, “It is not enough to say that we marched with Dr. King. We need to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing now?’”

Her views on LGBT rights have evolved; she split from her mother’s belief that there was a link between the civil rights movement and LGBT rights, marching against marriage equality in Georgia in 2004. After the landmark Supreme Court ruling in 2015 that granted same-sex couples the right to marry, though, she issued a statement that said, in part, “It is my sincere prayer … that (the ruling) encourages the global community to respect and embrace all LGBT global citizens with dignity and love.”

— Leanne Kleinmann

10 a.m.

MLK50 commemoration activities are booked up as political leaders, journalists and others from around the country pour into Downtown Memphis to attend events in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

Yet, in the impoverished South Memphis neighborhood just blocks away from the museum and Clayborn Temple, from where King led the sanitation workers’ march in 1968, residents say the celebrations are not for them. Read the story here.

Nate Henderson, 38, sits on an abandoned lot with view of Clayborn Temple. Photo by J. Dylan Sandifer

This story is brought to you by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit reporting project on economic justice in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by the Center for Community Change and the Surdna Foundation.