Tag Archives: Memphis Tennessee

Looking At The Results

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On Tuesday, The Washington Free Beacon posted an article about the results of placing the National Guard in Memphis.

According to a News Nation article posted on Tuesday, “Memphis had the nation’s highest violent crime rate in 2024, with a total crime rate 344% above the national average, according to officials. The city recorded nearly 300 homicides last year and nearly 400 in 2023.”

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

Since the Trump administration first deployed federal officers to Memphis in late September, the city has seen a 48 percent decrease in homicides, Attorney General Pam Bondi said during a press conference on Monday. The “Memphis Safe Task Force” has also led to a 45 percent year-over-year decrease in “overall serious crime,” a 49 percent drop in sexual assaults, and nearly 3,000 arrests, she told reporters, adding that the task force has recovered more than 100 missing children in less than two months.

…The news of the task force’s results comes as Bondi and the Trump administration face pushback and legal challenges from Tennessee Democrats. A state judge blocked the administration’s deployment of the National Guard in Memphis earlier this month after critics argued that the move violated Tennessee law.

When the Founding Fathers wrote the U.S. Constitution, they assumed that the individual states and cities would work to keep their cities and states safe. Unfortunately, that has not always been the case. Judges have not always upheld the law, and people who should not be walking the streets are walking the streets. I have been told by law enforcement that the majority of crimes are committed by repeat offenders. If we lock up first-time offenders, they are not able to repeat offend. I don’t like to see the National Guard used in this way, but if the local government won’t clean up their city, then someone else has to step in and do it.

Good News From Memphis

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On Monday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

The Memphis Safe Task Force, working under the coordination of the U.S. Marshals Service, has rescued 101 missing children and cleared more than 1,000 outstanding warrants in just 40 days.

Can we send the U.S. Marshals Service to every other city in America to rescue children?

The article reports:

According to News Nation, U.S. Marshals have arrested 2,342 individuals across Memphis on charges ranging from homicide to narcotics trafficking, firearms violations, and sex offenses. Of the cleared warrants, 203 involved firearms and 264 were narcotics-related.

Among the 101 children rescued was a 15-year-old boy missing since September 2, last seen walking along Highway 64 in Tennessee.

Thanks to the task force’s collaboration with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the teen was discovered living in a van with his father in Hawaii, thousands of miles from home, according to WREG.

The father, who has a long criminal record in Hawaii and California, including domestic violence, abuse, drugs, battery, and burglary, had been hiding out at a construction site where he worked.

When confronted, he fled the scene, leaving the teenager behind. The child was found safe by the Honolulu Police Department on November 6, 2025, and is now awaiting return to Tennessee.

The article concludes:

“We are happy that we have been able to use our fugitive hunting skills to assist local and state authorities with finding these missing children,” said Emily Williams, U.S. Marshals spokesperson. “What a testament to our partnerships to be able to work these cases together. While investigative work is tedious, locating missing and endangered children is one of the things we are most proud of.”

This is what happens when law enforcement focuses on investigating criminals rather than concerned parents who attend churches or school board meetings.

Fifty Years Later

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Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. My husband and I were stationed there at that time. It was an ugly moment in time. Martin Luther King, Jr., had come to the city in an attempt to quiet things down during a garbage strike which began in February 1968. Two black men had been killed while sitting on the back of a garbage truck smoking a cigarette. Racial tensions were high. Martin Luther King, Jr., first came to the city to address the strikers in March. He supported peaceful protest, but there were people in his inner circle that wanted more drastic action.

Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in racial equality. He believed that men (and women) should be judged by the content of their character–not the color of their skin. I also think he believed in equal educational and professional opportunities for everyone, regardless of race. Some of these ideas have been lost in recent years.

On March 26, The Hill reported:

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke downplayed the importance of diversity in the workforce and at his department on multiple occasions, CNN reported Monday.

Zinke made a number of off-the-cuff remarks that insinuated he did not prioritize diversity within the Interior Department, multiple senior administration sources told the network.

The officials said that the secretary instead said multiple times that he valued finding the best people and most qualified applicants, regardless of their cultural or racial backgrounds.

Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift denied that Zinke ever made the comments about diversity and denied the claims in the report.

“The anonymous claims made against the secretary are untrue. As a woman who has worked for him for a number of years in senior positions, I say without a doubt this claim is untrue, and I am hopeful that they are a result of a misunderstanding and not a deliberate mistruth,” Swift said in a statement.

People should be hired on the basis of their qualifications. If there is a lack of diversity, we need to improve the educational system so that there will naturally be diversity in the best people qualified for a job. I believe that is what Martin Luther King, Jr., had in mind. Quotas and hiring people for the sake of diversity rather than for their qualifications is just as wrong as disqualifying people because of their race, sex, etc.

We still have a long way to go to achieve the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Memories Of A Horrible Time

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This is a rambling article detailing some of my memories of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. There are no links–it is strictly my memories of the events–as I happened to be in Memphis at the time. Hopefully you will enjoy reading it.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. My husband and I were temporarily stationed in Memphis at that time and were scheduled to return to his home port in Rhode Island the next day. During the time we were stationed there, I worked as a temporary office employee and made use of the city’s public transportation while my husband drove to the Navy base at Millington every day.

The city had been on edge since February due to a garbage strike and the death of some city employees who were taking a break in a garbage truck when the mechanism engaged.  Martin Luther King, Jr., had visited the city in March, speaking to thousands at Mason Temple.

I was working in downtown Memphis on the day that Martin Luther King, Jr., was shot. Things were tense that day–downtown had been declared ‘off limits’ to military personnel. City buses had been surrounded by crowds and ‘rocked.’  I don’t remember whether or not any buses were tipped over. My husband disobeyed the ‘off limits’ order and came into the city to get me because we were afraid that the bus would not be a safe way to get home.

The night of April 4 was even more tense. I don’t remember whether or not there was a curfew in the city, but I suspect there was. The next day we attended graduation ceremonies for the school my husband had been attending and then headed back to Rhode Island to his next duty station. That weekend we were supposed to visit a classmate of my husband who was part of the Presidential helicopter squadron. Needless to say, when Washington, D. C. had riots, we cancelled those plans.

We had a National Guard escort through Nashville, Tennessee, on the way home. The Guard would allow six or seven cars to go through the city with military vehicles ahead and behind the cars. We had bought a car in Memphis and had Tennessee license plates on the car, so I felt as if we blended in a little better than we might have with Rhode Island plates.

After two days of hard driving, we pulled into my husband’s parents’ house right outside of New York City. The next day we went into New York City and heard a story I have never forgotten.

New York Mayor Lindsay carries in his budget

New York Mayor Lindsay carries in his budget (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

During this time, John Lindsay was the Mayor of New York City. I am making no comment regarding the success or failure of his term as Mayor. We went into the city to the recording studio where my husband had worked before joining the Navy and were talking with another employee who was also a pastor in a black church in Harlem. The Pastor told us what had happened in New York City after the shooting of Dr. King. The Pastor explained why New York City had not had the riots that several other American cities had gone through after the news of the assassination broke. When the news of Dr. King’s death came over the wire, Mayor Lindsay immediately called the pastors of the churches in Harlem and asked them to meet him in the street on the edge of Harlem. He went there with his driver, got out his megaphone and said something like ‘If you want to march, I will march with you.’ That march changed the fate of New York City from one of riots to one of relative peace. Leadership matters.

The next day we headed back to our peaceful home in Rhode Island. It was really good to be home.

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Once You Begin To Pay Blackmail It Never Ends

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This photo is of the Gibbs family farm house c...

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday in Memphis, Tennessee, The Commercial Appeal posted a story on the latest developments in the Pigford Settlement. I have posted a number of articles on the Pigford Settlement in the past, so if you are not familiar with it, use the search feature on this blog.

The article reports:

U.S. Dist. Judge Paul L. Friedman certified a class of plaintiffs aggregated in 23 separate complaints, including one made by the Memphis-based Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Inc., and its president, Thomas Burrell.

Burrell testified against the proposed settlement in a “fairness” hearing on Sept. 1, arguing that potential claimants should be able to access the much more liberal benefits of the earlier, 1999 settlement known as Pigford I. More than $1 billion has been paid out to more than 22,000 claimants in the first settlement.

Bottom line–there are some people in our society who have figured out a way to get money for nothing, and they want more!

Please take the time to read the article, but the part of the article that caught my eye was the comments.

One of the comments:

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH OUR GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM – – – –

The folks who are getting free stuff don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff
because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

And the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even MORE free stuff on top of the free stuff they’re getting already!

Now…..
The people who are forcing people to PAY for the free stuff have told the
people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced and racist.

So ….
The people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to HATE
the people who are PAYING for the free stuff because they are selfish.
And they are promised more free stuff if they will vote for the people who force the people who pay for the free stuff to give them even more free stuff

And – – – – – that’s the Straight stuff!

This comment was posted by someone who calls himself tn_rebel. I think he pretty much sums it up. I am sorry that black farmers were discriminated against–that was wrong–but it does not give the people who were discriminated against an unlimited right to the wallets of people who had nothing to do with the discrimination.

 

 

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