This is part 10 of a 10-part series on the first tenant movement in Memphis. Read part 9 here.
“Arrests, raids, and jail — this is how the city has chosen to deal with the real problems that poor people face in Memphis,” the Black Panthers wrote as they faced prosecution for their “live in.” The trial was long and drawn out and full of dramatic acts. During its second day, for instance, there were reports that the Panthers chanted “death to the fascist pigs” as they entered the courtroom. A photo shows their faces obscured by copies of that week’s Black Panther newspaper. Once news of the proceedings reached the national Black Panther Party, they began referring to the group as the “Memphis 16.”
Early on, the Panthers’ lawyers fought for a change of venue for 14 defendants, arguing they couldn’t receive a fair trial in Shelby County. As winter turned to spring and summer, they argued the Panthers’ peace bonds were unconstitutional. The Party told their story in an August issue of their newspaper, pleading for eyes on the trial: “if the Memphis 16 are put in prison,” they wrote, “then anyone who stands up for social justice can expect the same treatment.”
Get more stories like this in your inbox every Wednesday in The Weekly.
Subscribe to MLK50’s newsletter
and get Memphis-rooted news and insights
right-sized for your neighborhood.
These legal challenges were unsuccessful, but none of the “Memphis 16” seem to have gotten long jail sentences. A year after their arrests, a judge dismissed the peace warrants for everyone except Jerry Greer Wyatt, citing good behavior. Once again, the city’s Black radicals faced a crossroads, unsure of where to go next.
Throughout the “live-in,” standoff and court case, the Memphis Panthers tried to keep the focus on Memphis Housing Authority’s massive waitlist and the number of poor Memphians facing eviction and displacement.
William Miles, MHA assistant director, traced the Panthers’ concerns to a question posed by Minister Suhkara Yahweh and the Black United Front years earlier: Where should new public housing go — and does it balance out the human cost of urban renewal?
“We have been stymied for the past three years by the community in our attempts to build more public housing,” Miles told reporters. “We could have built twice as much as we have if we could get sites approved.”
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.
Ultimately, this question wouldn’t be resolved anytime soon. In 1973, the Memphis NAACP and a group of tenants sued MHA and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, claiming that MHA disproportionately placed new projects in majority-Black neighborhoods. The lawsuit went on for more than a decade before they reached a settlement.
Why didn’t Memphis’ Black Panther Party stick in our collective memory? In many cases, the aftermath of the Sanitation Workers Strike has disappeared into the legacy of the strike itself — along with the many different groups vying to transform the city at that time.
The same is true of the city’s first tenant movement, where Black radicals played a vital part — even after the face of Black power in Memphis was no longer active.
Still, the echoes of that work continue in Memphis now. It’s in places like Memphis Towers, where tenants have organized for years to demand safe, healthy and affordable living conditions.
It’s in neighborhoods like Whitehaven and Boxtown, where residents have fought against the steady approach of gentrification and pollution.
Across the city, the steady organizing and activism of our Black working class are picking up the mantle of housing justice, pushing for a new world, hoping it might start at home.
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.
To share this history, Davis used these resources for research:
Harland Bartholomew & Associates, “Land Use Plan for the Kansas Street Urban Renewal Area” (1972)
The Black Panther Intercommunal News Service
The Commercial Appeal Archives
Jet Magazine Archives
Caitlin Lee and Clark Randall, “Inside the St. Louis Rent Strike of 1969,” Belt Magazine (2019)
Memphis Housing Authority Annual Reports
Memphis Housing Authority, Memphis Housing: Quarter Century of Progress (circa 1960)
The Memphis Press-Scimitar Archives
Akira Drake Rodriguez, “Diverging Space for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing” (2021)
John I. Stewart, Jr., “Racial Discrimination in Public Housing: Rights and Remedies,” The University of Chicago Law Review (1974)
University of Memphis Libraries & Rhodes College Digital Archive, Sanitation Strike Tapes (1968-1973)
This story is brought to you byMLK50: Justice Through Journalism, a nonprofit newsroom focused on poverty, power and policy in Memphis. Support independent journalism by making a tax-deductible donation today. MLK50 is also supported by these generous donors.