This is part three of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis. Read part 2 here.
The Texas-East McLemore rent strike in 1968 drew Memphis into a nationwide movement for housing justice. But Elizabeth Hayes’ tenant association found its power through its narrow focus: targeting one landlord in one neighborhood made the tenants’ pressure all the more impactful.
Other local activists took a different approach: What would it look like to have a mass organization of tenants across the city? That was the goal of Jesse Epps and his controversial attempt to build the American Tenants Union.
Born in Mississippi, Epps entered Memphis history as a field representative for AFSCME International; he helped organize the Sanitation Workers’ Strike and served as a key negotiator.
As that strike ended, Epps stayed in Memphis to support other city employees — and to organize a union election turned strike at St. Joseph Hospital. But in 1970, AFSCME’s international leadership abruptly relieved Epps of his duties in Local 1733. After rumors surfaced of huge discrepancies in the local’s finances, eight members accused Epps and other union leaders of embezzlement in a federal lawsuit. The following year, two separate fraud cases further undermined his reputation.
Epps maintained his innocence in all these cases, but news media gravitated to each new development. So Epps spent much of the early 1970s trying out different social justice efforts while keeping his household afloat — including an unsuccessful run for mayor.
If you never knew there was a militant response from Black folks fighting for their lives in Memphis slums and projects, think again. Read the whole series here.
Throughout his time away from the spotlight, Epps observed local renters stepping up their demands to landlords and housing officials. On occasion, he used his organizing experience and connections to aid those efforts. When two children died near Memphis Housing Authority projects on a single spring day in 1971, resident leaders asked for Epps’ help planning a protest. Later that week, almost a hundred protesters marched from Whitehaven to City Hall, bringing a wide range of housing complaints directly to Mayor Henry Loeb.
At other points, Epps’ housing work was more questionable. That same year, he was arrested in Mississippi for allegedly giving $20,000 in bad checks to dentist and civic leader J.O. Tate. Epps had contracted with Tate to set up homes for hurricane victims under a federally subsidized mortgage program — but the money disappeared, and the homes were never built. Nevertheless, Epps was released from jail on a technicality, and the charges were eventually dropped.
Experiences like these left a big impact on Epps as he decided his next move. By the summer of 1973, Epps was ready to announce what he’d been working on: a new organization called the American Tenants Union. Based on traditional labor unions like AFSCME, the ATU would consist entirely of renters at public and subsidized housing who would pay monthly dues of $3 each.
In Epps’ long-term vision, ATU would become a nationwide organization with a full team of paid staff; Memphis would serve as its headquarters and flagship chapter. He hoped tenants would use ATU to negotiate leases with their local housing authorities, represent members in complaints and disputes and advocate for better living conditions in and around their homes.
As its founder and president, Epps quickly asked MHA to work with his new group. MHA took a friendly but distant approach at first: They told ATU leadership that they would speak with any group of tenants about living conditions — union or not. But when ATU asked for formal recognition as a “bargaining agent,” MHA refused, calling their demand a “breach of faith.” At that time, Memphis Area Legal Services largely represented tenants in disputes with MHA, while MHA’s residents council provided input on each case.
As ATU’s work continued, criticisms came from all sides. MHA officials and board members questioned whether taking dues from poor tenants was exploitative. Some members of the residents council felt like the group undermined their role as advocates: “If [Epps] was sincere,” said council president Willie Pearl Butler, “he would urge the people to work with their resident associations.”
But Epps had responses to all of these concerns. Where critics saw vulnerable citizens giving their money away to a self-proclaimed representative, Epps saw poor people equipping themselves to fight for change by combining their resources: “The same folks who say the fee is unjust are the same folks who never say anything about poor people losing money at the dog track, about the corner liquor store selling alcohol to poor people, and about merchants taking advantage of the poor. But as soon as poor people pool their funds to improve their situation, they scream. They scream because they are afraid these people will organize and bring their situation to light.”
He challenged rumors that ATU would only help dues-paying members and that he would move on from the group when a better opportunity came along. And rather than being a matter of egotism, working as an independent third party was a key part of Epps’ approach. As Epps told The Commercial Appeal in the fall of 1973, “We are committed to the principle that the poor can help determine their own destiny and are not necessarily tied to what the system wants.”Over the next five years, the ATU took on everyday renter concerns and long-term policy work. ATU staffers recorded over a thousand grievances from members to argue that “maintenance complaints… have reached crisis proportions.” In meetings with City Council members, the group pushed for increased legal protections for renters, additional seats on the MHA Board, an independent body to investigate housing complaints and police patrols at crime-ridden projects. When the city funded a special MATA route that carried welfare recipients to pick up their checks, ATU was behind the effort. And when Memphis City Schools cut a bus that took children from the Lauderdale Courts project to nearby Carnes Elementary School, ATU organized a march in protest — leading over a hundred children across sidewalks and through patches of high grass
But whenever the group — or Epps himself — hit a bump, newspapers were quick to highlight it. Less than a year after its founding, for example, the group was evicted from its office at the Shelby County Democratic Club. Then, Epps received more notoriety when he ran an unsuccessful campaign for Tennessee State House in 1974.
In the following years, Epps moved to New York City — leaving ATU’s first chapter in the hands of its members.
Justin A. Davis is a freelance journalist, music critic and former grassroots organizer. He’s covered politics, pop culture and history for outlets like Scalawag magazine, Waging Nonviolence, Post-Trash and Science for the People. He lives in Memphis.
Coming Thursday:
Part 4: Why didn’t Memphis’ tenant movement keep growing in the 1970s?
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