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Memphis, Tennessee
in the 1950s and 1960s

Memphis, Tennessee, is named after the city of Memphis, an ancient city of Egypt. The name means "place of good abode," a reference that was often used in the Tennessee city's promotional literature. Memphis has long been the center of the mid-South, a veritable crossroads of transportation and commerce. For some years after 1892, most trains crossed here and five of seven national highways used that Hanrahan Bridge at Memphis, the only crossing between Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and Louisiana. It is not surprising that in the 1940s, Memphis accounted for about thirty-three percent of all the cotton sales in the U.S.

The reality of segregation, necessary to maintain political and economic control of a large Black population, was as real in Memphis as in any southern city. There were segregated waiting rooms and restrooms in train and bus stations and in all public facilities. And there was even a day when only Black people could go to the Memphis Zoo! Some would say that it was a sign of progress that Blacks could go at all.

Beyond the reputation of Beale Street, "Where the Blues Were Born," there was a sizable Black Memphis community, with significant leadership and financial resources which could be mustered to fight the old order. The NAACP anchored the Memphis protests with such local leaders as Jesse Turner, Benjamin Hooks, Maxine Smith, and others playing important roles. The Volunteer Ticket in 1959 was a major voter registration drive which increased the number of Black voters from fewer than 20,000 in 1951 to more than 50,000 in 1959. The desegregation of public facilities and educational institutions and the election of Black people to public office soon followed.

The October 3, 1991, election of the former Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Willie W. Herenton, as Memphis' first Black mayor is one outcome of the foundation laid during the Civil Rights Era.

Ronald W. Bailey
Northeastern University

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