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[The Jackson-Crockett Company]

RiverboatAROUND THE USA

Memphis, Tennessee, is an exciting, fractious river town

Two famous 20th Century deaths that occurred in Memphis, Tennessee -- Elvis Presley and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. -- epitomize the Bluff City to us.

Elvis is the redneck side of Memphis -- the unpolished, devil-may-care and zestful plunge into life. Dr. King is the tragic, senseless expression of racism to the detriment of all, black or white. (Dr. King's killer, James Earl Ray, recently died after 30 years as a Tennessee state prisoner.)

Memphis could be a better city, but it has too often hindered itself with a limited vision and by choosing petty politics over progress.

Today, Memphis is making great strides but remains separated by race. Among Tennessee's large cities, it is the laggard in overcoming the legacy of segregation, a phenomenon reinforced as much by black community leaders as by white. Both groups play the race card with ease.

Despite these aspects of its culture and politics -- or perhaps because of them -- the city has some great assets: excellent art galleries, vibrant nightlife, fine colleges and universities, excellent dining ... and barbecue ribs.

Our direct Memphis experiences are somewhat in the past, and we feel unqualified to comment specifically about lodging, restaurants and neighborhoods. We continue to follow Memphis civic developments and politics fairly closely, though, which is the basis of our opinions.

Our Memphis information is under these headings:

Jackson-Crockett's Tennessee Guide also covers Memphis.

Highlights

Memphis has some tremendous assets that give it character and quality.

Mud Island is an unexpectedly fascinating museum about the Mississippi River located, appropriately enough, on an island accessible from downtown by monorail. The River Walk is a five-block-long outdoor model of the river with flowing water and all of the major features along with history notes. There's also an amphitheater with regular concerts and a museum.

The Downtown Trolley -- a genuine trolley that's newer than it looks -- is a visitor's delight.

The National Civil Rights Museum is at the former Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King was assassinated.Phono Record

Beale Street downtown is where W.C. Handy created the blues; today it is a popular nighttime attraction and the site of many music events.

Graceland was Elvis Presley's mansion, an inimitable collision of 1950s, nouveau riche and redneck. It's open for tours; Elvis is buried in the garden. The web site is more tasteful than the house.

Sun Records [slow site] launched the careers of many rock 'n' roll greats, including Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. It's now a museum. The web site covers all aspects of Memphis music.

Memphis In May [slow site] is an annual festival celebrating everything that's Memphis ... from cotton to barbecue and from blues to rock 'n' roll. It includes:

(Link to these events through the Memphis in May site.)

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is among the world's premier centers for research and treatment of catastrophic diseases in children, primarily pediatric cancers.

Colleges & Universities

Sports

The Memphis Redbirds are AAA affiliates of the St. Louis Cardinals and play baseball in the Pacific Coast League.

History

To our minds, much of the story of Memphis today is foretold by its history.

Most of Tennessee was settled from the east by farmers and pioneers who pressed over the Appalachian Mountains, through the Cumberland Gap or down the Tennessee Valley to tame a rugged land. In other parts of Tennessee, they created a culture that reflects the hard-scrabble nature of their task and the Scottish and Irish values of community and ruggedness.

Memphis, however, is a river city that grew as a consequence of travelers on the Mississippi River. Its rakish, exploitative attitude today is akin to the riverboat captains and gamblers that drifted through town, taking their due and leaving without a care for their wake.

West Tennessee was the bastion of slavery in Tennessee, and Memphis was its cornerstone. The flat, rich bottomland with its powdery topsoil was perfect for growing cotton, which was sold through the Memphis Cotton Exchange.

West Tennessee led Tennessee in secession from the Union at the start of the Civil War. It was the site of Shiloh, one of the deadliest battles of the war, and of Fort Pillow, where troops under the command of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest massacred a black regiment that was trying to surrender. (Contrary to myth, Forrest wasn't a founder of the Ku Klux Klan.)

This was the fiefdom of Ed "Boss" Crump, an early 20th century political boss who virtually controlled the entire state until 1948. His power in Memphis was absolute, and his corruption of its civic machinery inhibited the growth of institutions typically associated with good government.

To be fair, Memphis has sometimes endured more than its share of bad luck. It was decimated by disease twice in the 19th century. Concerted and earnest civic efforts to lure a much-coveted National Football League franchise have inexplicably failed. Its claim as the birthplace of rock 'n' roll is at least as strong as Cleveland's, but the mistake on the lake got the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame. Misfeasance in state government denied it fair representation in the Legislature until after the 1962 Baker vs. Carr Supreme Court decision, which originated in Memphis.

Out of this heritage, though, has grown an every-man-for-himself attitude that still characterizes Memphis.

Arts & Culture

Memphis Brooks Museum of Art is the largest and finest art museum in Tennessee. We've been several times; it's great.

The Dixon Gallery & Gardens has a large collection of impressionist paintings ... but no web site that we can find.

The Pink Palace Museum, Planetarium & IMAX Theatre is part of the Memphis Museum System.

Memphis Botanic Garden is near Overton Park.

Politics

Memphis politics is first and foremost about race. Everything is viewed through that prism. Every proposal, every candidacy and every move is first evaluated in racial terms.

In that context, various factions and divisions are significant:

Men ArguingThe machinations and maneuvering as these groups line up for power and try to build majority coalitions can be incredible. Anti-Ford blacks and Republicans can coalesce or Shelby County whites and organized labor can join forces. Any combination is possible -- and sometimes all occur simultaneously. For statewide candidates, dealing with this situation can be a nightmare.

Coalitions build and break overnight for the most unlikely reasons. A personal affront, an unfulfilled promise, a strategic maneuver to position for a future situation or a stab in the back to avenge an old grudge can all turn public issues on their ear.

Charles Dudley Warner's observation that "politics makes strange bedfellows" is never more true than in Memphis and Shelby County.

Willie Herenton broke the color barrier to become the first black mayor of Memphis in 1991. A solid member of the Anti-Ford camp, he has done a lot to close the racial gap. In 1999, Herenton turned back a challenge from the brother of former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Sr.

The Ford Family

They had been active for years before, but the Ford family took center stage in Memphis politics in 1974 with a trifecta that elected Harold Ford Sr. to Congress, brother John to the state Senate and brother Emmitt to the state House -- all on the same day.

Harold's victory was all the more dramatic because when the votes were first tallied, it seemed that he'd lost by a handful of votes. Then his supporters found eight ballot boxes in a dumpster behind the offices of the Republican, all-white Election Commission. The votes in those boxes put Harold ahead, and he defeated incumbent Dan Kuykendall to become the first black elected to Congress from the South since Reconstruction.

Ever since, the Ford family has been the Great Black Satan in the eyes of many white Memphians.Taxi!

Scions of the late funeral home director N.J. Ford, himself a delegate to the 1978 state Constitutional Convention, the Fords succeed with old-style politics focused on political patronage, constituent services, demagoguery, an awesome get-out-the-vote effort on Election Day and mysterious caches of cash, known as walking-around money.

Central to the effort is the Ford ballot, a sample ballot distributed in black precincts on Election Day and marked with the family's endorsements in each contest. The ballots are apparently printed and distributed on election eve because candidates have found themselves surprisingly unendorsed for last-minute reasons.

Over the years, anti-Ford ballots have been distributed and sometimes fake Ford ballots have been sighted. There have even been rumors of two different versions of the Ford ballot on the same day, if the family had more than one political base to cover at the time. In any case, to be endorsed on the Ford ballot is good for tens of thousands of votes, enough to control city elections, change the tide in county elections and win close statewide elections.

Although the Fords are Democrats, their first loyalty is to themselves, not to the party. Consequently, the Ford ballot sometimes endorses Republicans, often under inexplicable circumstances.

White politicians, especially, benefit from an early Ford endorsement because the Ford machine will organize Sunday motorcades and prominent members of the family will escort the candidates to black churches, where candidates are introduced by the pastor and invited to speak from the pulpit.

Since the original Ford sweep in 1974:

One day, someone will write an incredible book about the Fords. Meanwhile, Memphis politics revolves around them.

More about Memphis is in our Tennessee political overview.

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