Memphis: Neighbors, Those Around Us



Willie Mitchell Blvd., South Memphis

Driving up Lauderdale Street on the south side of Memphis doesn’t strike any particular sensibilities. A wide north-south thoroughfare flanked by side streets of shade trees. Neat square front lawns and mostly one-story homes. We could have been in almost any suburb in the country.

Crossing Longview Drive brings you to Calvary Longview United Methodist Church and, a few hundred yards further, Longview Community Holiness Church. Then north of Person Avenue the road narrows. The sidewalks fill with weeds. Neat lawns and homes are replaced here and there by empty lots overtaken with crabgrass. The pavement along the cantered side streets lies cracked and patched-over. On one corner an abandoned house leans toward its inevitable defeat by the hands of time and the elements. On another stands a general store that may or may not have gone out of business. Parking lots and chain link fences and faded, cracking storefront signs begin to take over the landscape.

Yet there are also homes that show a resilient pride of the people who live here. People who are just a few minutes’ walk away from the saving graces of Mt. Sinai Baptist, Morning View Baptist, Greater Mt. Nebo Baptist, Carnegie Church of God-Christ, Mission Global Ministries, Christ Communion Church of God, Christ Missionary Baptist, Pearly Gates Baptist, Our Little Angels Thrift Store, the Southside Church of Christ and, on the far end of South Side Park, Mont Evers Cathedral Missionary Baptist.

Without warning Lauderdale Street became Willie Mitchell Boulevard. As we passed the Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church we saw that we were getting close to the address on the piece of paper resting on the dashboard.

A left turn on Olive Avenue (also known as Reverend Dr. Van Ford Jr. Road) brought us to Pleasant Green Missionary Baptist Church, Peter Rock Spiritual Church and the Temple of Praise Church. Up ahead, within a hundred yards of the intersection with Trigg Avenue, stood St. Thomas Catholic Church, New Kingdom Missionary Baptist Church, New Asia Baptist Church, and Church of God House of Prayer. Our stop was smack in the middle of it all.

We pulled over in front of a simple brick building. The word ROYAL was spelled out in cement high up on the two-story façade. The door underneath wore a colorful mural of (we figured) Willie Mitchell. From the gravel parking lot off of adjacent Richmond Avenue, in front of a wall painted forest green and fronted with tufts of grass and weeds, Lawrence ‘Boo’ Mitchell, Willie’s grandson, smiled and waved at us.

“Welcome to Memphis, gentlemen,” he said, giving us a round of enthusiastic handshakes. And there in a nondescript neighborhood in South Memphis we visited a small piece of American history - and befriended some of the everyday people who live there among the shaded streets, in the shadow of that history.

New Orleans to Memphis: Along the Roads We Travel

Our hopes were high as we headed north out of New Orleans, crossing the waters of lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain. Today’s road would lead to Memphis, 400 miles up the Mississippi River, a short enough trip to allow for a sojourn along Route 51 instead of spending the day on the Interstate. Images of small unvisited towns - humble environments and electric communities - filled our imaginations.

Route 51, we would soon learn, is lined with lots of forest and farm and not much else. It’s a beautiful drive, from Vicksburg to Clarksdale (the flooding around Redwood and Long Lake notwithstanding). Sadly the bits of life we saw resembled more of life that once was – closed businesses, gutted-out school buildings, collapsed barns and homes wearing nothing but the signs of destitution. Lending contrast were well-tended farm houses floating in wide, neat fields and the occasional shined-up Subway shop.

Across Panola and into Lafayette County we pulled off into Oxford, a quaint college town with attractive houses resting on lush, trimmed lawns. The central square holds plenty of charm, though just like the road we’d traveled to that point the sidewalks and balcony cafes were scarcely populated on this Memorial Day. The general consensus was that we wished we had more time to get to know the funky, lively Mississippi we all knew was out there somewhere.

In Cordova, Tennessee, just east of Memphis, the world’s tallest Three Crosses of Calvary look down over Bellevue Baptist Church, Interstate 40 and Memphis and the Mississippi River and the western horizon beyond. As the sun goes down the atmosphere is infinitely more serene than at BBQ rib joint you might find yourself patronizing thirty minutes later. Nakesha our waitress was a true professional, utterly confident that we wanted Memphis-style dry ribs not the dripping-with-spicy-sauce kind so popular with ‘people who don’t know what real ribs are’. By the way, Nakesha, can we get three more beers? ‘Oh I already ordered them for y’all, they’re on the way, hold on…’

Stuffed to the tonsils with fatty meat and cornbread we waddled out to the parking lot, inviting the staff of Corky’s to step outside with us. ‘What a wonderful thing,’ said waitress Evelyn Perkins, visibly moved as she spoke. ‘People forget so easily how many people lost their lives, how detrimental (9-11) was to the country.’ Ashunta McCray shared the message she wrote and placed inside: ‘America, look to the highest power. Love each other, save the world.’ Andrew ‘Lattie’ Latimer, a DJ who just happened by, couldn’t get enough of the project. ‘The whole world’s gonna end up seeing this thing,’ he said, adding the Grateful dead quote going through his head. You get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Late that night outside the Motel 6 we met Daren Howell, known as Church Boy within the motorcycle club he’d just joined, and his friend Pierre, also a motorcycle rider. ‘It’s good if you’ve got no family around,’ Daren said of being a part of such a club. ‘Whatever happens you have someone who will help you out.’ He and Pierre both wore a 'P' on their backs, a sign that they were probationary motorcycle club members. ‘9-11 is history we’ll all remember,’ Daren wrote on a piece of paper to put inside the cross. ‘All people lost, loved and lived, may Jesus be with them.’ Before they took off Daren asked us to stand with them as he said a prayer for the safety of all of us as we continued on down our respective roads.

New Orleans: The Strength of a Community

Many of the homes surrounding Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church in the St. Roch district of New Orleans were damaged when Katrina blew through in 2005. Some of them, and countless more all over the city, sit abandoned to this day, their windows boarded up, dates spray-painted on the front door or the porch wall marking the last time anyone set foot inside. The school next to the church still has not reopened.

All of this stood in stark contrast to the people drifting in from all directions.

As we pulled up we were greeted by a man named Emmanuel, dressed sharp right up to his Kangol cap. Moments later Choir Director Richard Cheri emerged from the golden double doors of the church; his wife Cynthia, a choir member, would appear beside him out of nowhere. They all thanked us, graciously and enthusiastically, for coming to their parish. Only a few minutes in we already knew the pleasure would be all ours.

The plan was to carry the cross into the church and stand it up. This quickly went to pot when we discovered the hard way that it wouldn’t fit through those gold front doors. Our only other choice then would be to stand it up at the foot of the steps outside, but with the breezes threatening, leaving a 500-pound, 14-foot piece of steel teetering by itself out on the sidewalk for the hour and a half service (‘He gets us out of there in about an hour if the Saints are playing,’ young Roy LaFargue told us) was quickly voted down. ‘Just leave it on its back,’ Jon said, already sweating in the bright humid morning.

Mass began, not surprisingly, with the choir belting out a brilliant opening hymn. The altar was backed with a mural that stretched all the way to the arched ceiling. Stained glass windows, massive and sparkling; hardly a church in Europe could compete. The reading of the gospel was injected with more singing; the sharing of peace and handshakes lasted ten minutes. It was amazing to think this church, this neighborhood, these people’s lives had been so recently ravaged.

After Mass Richard spoke of his community, admitting that yeah he was surrounded by an incredibly strong group of people. But they hadn’t done anything so special. ‘Thanks to God, we’re still here.’ Richard’s smile and his spirit were infective. Outside, watching the congregation milling around praising the cross and slurping on cherry ice, a woman spoke to Rev. Fernand Cheri (yes, Richard’s brother). ‘I felt the spirit of the Lord in there,’ she gushed. ‘He rose up from your toes and right into my heart!’ Gerard Hairston, from DC and a university student there in New Orleans, understood the strength of the community, after Katrina and in all things. ‘You can go through any problem, any obstacle,’ he said. ‘And come out victorious in the other side.’

Spending a little time at Our Lady Star of the Sea, you can’t help but believe this is true.

Bunkie, LA: Music & Mexican Food

Fifteen minutes south of the Bayou Boeuf River we rolled into Bunkie, a Main Street mix of local joints, small businesses and national franchises. And, today, live music.

“Check it out,” Jon said, pointing at a parking lot on the right side of the road where a four-man band in cowboy hats was twinging their twang up on a flatbed trailer.

“Time to pull over,” I said as Jon was pulling over.

A modest mingling of people stood in the hot sun watching the band while others sat in the shade of a white canopy tent. “We’re celebrating the Grand Opening of Karen’s Kitchen,” they explained, pointing over to a small blue barn-like hut that could have housed an ice-cream parlor in a former life. “You guys hungry? Go get yourselves some lunch. Good home cooking for you!”

Excellent. Right there in the middle of Louisiana, in some small town along a two-lane road. Could there be a more perfect place to grab some real Cajun cooking? Some genuine Creole cuisine? Some mudbug jambalaya, or a heaping helping of down-home, authentic…Mexican food?

That’s how it goes when you decide to just see how it goes. (Karen, by the way, could make a mean enchilada.)

By the time Bert, Ronnie, Jason and Chad had finished their song the crowd, consisting mainly of Karen’s extensive family tree branches, was listening to Jon and passing around the brick. “We’re police officers,” said Chad, motioning toward Jon’s truck. “So this really means something special to us.” After having Jon climb up onto their flatbed stage to say a few words into the mike, Chad thanked him for bringing his project to their small town and asked everyone else to make sure they did the same. The band then fell into a seemingly spontaneous rendition of John Cougar Mellencamp’s Pink Houses.

With a population of four thousand Bunkie was by far the largest town we saw along the hundred-mile route between Alexandria and Baton Rouge. For two hours we rolled past the farms and fields and the homes that dot the flat landscape, no evidence of the wood-porch towns we were hoping for. When Route 71 ran into Route 190 we cut left and ran through the northern reaches of the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge, habitat for Louisiana black bear, American alligators, bald eagles, white-tailed deer and the eastern wild turkey.

We saw none of them as we rolled along through the northern tip of the thousands of acres of rich bottomland hardwood swamp they call home. Just south of us, running parallel to 190, were the tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad. Interstate 10 brushed the southern boundary of the refuge. Somewhere in between, in the middle of all that green land, bordered on the west by the Atchafalaya River, all those bears and gators and turkeys were running wild. I would have given almost anything to see them.

Coalgate, OK: Why We're Doing This

Coalgate, OK Police & Fire Dept.

The cartoonish Coalgate Fire & EMS logo painted on the glass front door looked like an invitation if I ever saw one. We knocked anyway. Twice.

No answer. Twice.

We stepped inside. It was cool, dark and quiet. Sooty yellow turnout gear for a dozen men, maybe more, hung in a row along one wall. Helmets rested neatly on the shelves above. Below, big rubber boots stood in pairs. On the frames of the red metal racks were names written in black marker.

A hand-drawn memorial banner, dedicated to the New York Fire Department, hung on the wall at the top of the stairs.

Out of the silence came the sound of footsteps, followed by a lanky man in a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and the thickest moustache this side of Wyatt Earp. He smiled as he walked up to us. “Can I help you gentlemen?” Roger Wilson was off duty but still welcomed our odd intrusion with the kind of warmth you just can’t fake.

“How ya doin’?” Jon said. “Sorry to bother you like this, but uh…we want to show you something.”

Understandably, Roger looked a bit confused. He stroked his moustache and asked what it was we had to show him. Ten seconds of explanation and that confusion turned to intrigue. Mr. Wilson followed us outside.

“Man, we gotta show this to the rest of the guys! They’re just down the road! Come on, let’s go!” Three minutes later, in the parking lot behind the Family Health Center of Southern Oklahoma, we met with as good a bunch of guys as you could possibly imagine.

They spoke earnestly with Jon. They spoke quietly with each other. They held pieces of paper against the sides of their trucks or on their bent knees, writing notes and messages.

‘After 9-11, you know, all across the country and all across the world, we were brothers.’ On paper such a statement can come across as contrived, but when a guy like Berney Blue speaks you know it’s coming from the heart. ‘It means so much to us that you guys are here,’ said Assistant Chief Aaron Blue, Berney’s brother. 

On the edge of town Jon pulled over. “I gotta do something,” he said. The urgency in his voice made me think he had to take a whiz. The spark in his eye said he had something else to let out.

Jon dug into the pile of stuff in the back seat of the cab, pulled out a long blue sack and walked to the back of the truck. In that sack was an American flag tethered to a four-foot long flagpole that fit perfectly in one of the holes along the top edge of the side of the truck bed.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to do that,” Jon said to me as we pulled back out onto the road.

“Put the flag up?”

“Yeah. I’d been thinking about it but until now it just didn’t feel right. I felt like it would look like, I don’t know, some kind of political statement. And I didn’t want this trip to turn into some big Rah-Rah USA thing.”

“So why now?”

“Because I think that this is bigger than 9-11.” Jon paused, staring out at Route 75. “I mean, not that what we’re doing is bigger. Or more important or whatever because it’s not. But at the same time, you know, this is for all the people who died, obviously, but I feel like it really is for all the first responders who went down there, to Ground Zero, and then never came back. It’s for people like that who make this country great. And these guys we just met, they’re risking their lives to help other people. Maybe they’re not running into a hundred-story building that just got hit by a plane but still, all these guys are putting themselves on the line. That’s the attitude, you know, the spirit that made this country what it is. It ain’t about politics. It’s about people. And I kind of knew that when we started, I guess. But meeting all these people, and then talking to those guys back there… It all just came together.”

Jon’s words hung in the air. There was nothing else to say.

We rolled on, Jon’s flag whipping around in the breeze.

Oklahoma City: Past and Present

Heading east from Santa Fe the mountains turned into hills, which slowly gave way to flat desert horizons. Across the plains of the Texas panhandle and into Oklahoma we spotted dust devils and smoke from what might have been a huge brush fire. Miles and miles of open space along the eternal highway, rarely a farm or a windmill, an occasional town, and wire fence lining the road on both sides the entire way.

Jon noted that it was a blessing, perhaps, that our departure was delayed two days while we waited for our camera crew – otherwise we might have gotten caught in the tornados responsible for all the debris and bent, twisted signs and the dozens of uprooted and broken trees we saw along the several miles leading into Oklahoma City.

Oklahoma City sits like a huge centerpiece on a vast dinner table, surrounded by overpasses of tarnished silverware and scraps of civilization scattered like crumbs. The downtown area, once filled with warehouses, now hums with the vibrancy of the young, promising cultural and entertainment district known affectionately as Bricktown.

Outside the Chesapeake Arena hundreds of purple-robed graduates laughed and talked and snapped pictures. The brick walls of the raised railroad tracks running through town were decorated with colorful painted murals depicting the historical side of the state. More painted scenes brought life to the walls of the old warehouses lining the canal, a spruced-up waterway that lends a romantic face to this once-dusty town.

It was after midnight when we pulled up to the corner of North Robinson Avenue and NW 5th Street. In front of us was a huge gray wall with an open doorway. This was the entrance to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum. There was no traffic disturbing the peace; no noise to distract us from the brooding, beautiful, surreal atmosphere.

We descended into the memorial grounds, walking past the pool of water and along a path, through the tree-lined garden where those chairs sat, over to the one remaining section of the Murrah Building’s eastern wall. Behind us, over the doorway we had walked through, was a 9:01, signifying the moment right before the blast. Across the Memorial grounds, on an opposite wall, shone a simple 9:03. In between we stood, emotionally suspended in place and time, feeling very much connected to a moment more than twenty years ago.

“What are we doing?” Jon said quietly as he looked around. “This journey, this trip…feels so insignificant compared to all the stuff that’s happened. And everything happening now even, in places like Joplin.”

Jon could find a wisp of solace in the words of the people we’d met so far, and all the people we were going to meet the rest of the way to New York. His work was not insignificant.

There just seems so much work to do.

Santa Fe: Bridging a Cognitive Gap

The road today led us across some beautiful high country desert. Rain pelted our windshield as we rolled into Dolce, the snow-covered peaks of the San Juan Mountains still visible to the east. We had hoped to make a detour through Taos before heading to Santa Fe, but by the time we stopped for lunch at the High Country Restaurant & Saloon in Chama (altitude 7860 feet) we had decided we would have to skip that extra slice of this beautiful state. As we rolled on southward the rain turned to snow.

Battalion Commander Dave Trujillo met us as we pulled up to Santa Fe Fire Department’s Station #1. I had spoken with him over the phone on two separate occasions, to explain what we were doing and to set up a time to stop by, so he basically knew why there were two trucks in his lot, one of them with a huge piece of metal tied to the back.

The other men and women in the department were totally clueless.

Captain Gerard Sena summed up the mood around the fire house after September 11th. “There was a definite sense of loss in the following days. Across the nation you have brothers out there going to work, kissing the wife and kids good-bye and hoping for the best.”

Captain Naranjo and Engine 1 led the way to Santa Fe Plaza; Rescue 3 followed behind.

With our firefighter friends standing in a curved line behind the cross Jon eased into the spiel that was becoming second nature to him. As he was still speaking one of the women in the crowd interjected.

“These guys do a great job for us,” she said, pointing past Jon toward the line of firefighters in blue. “It is so wonderful you are involving them in this.” Her name was Patty. She was a Victims’ Services Volunteer in Travis County, Texas. A few other people chimed in, with words of affirmation and scraps of applause.

I’m sure that woman meant what she said. But I wondered if she in particular, and the greater public in general, had always been that ready and willing to sing the praises of the local firefighters. Not that they hadn’t always deserved it. But had the proverbial fireman rescuing the cat from the tree been replaced with the image of those first responders rushing into the smoking, smoldering towers? Were these men (and one woman) of the Santa Fe Fire Department now on a level with the 343 firemen who were lost on that day trying to save people they didn’t even know?

Jon and I would debate it later, to no definite conclusion though it seemed plausible to think that this cross bridged a geographic and cognitive gap between those firefighters in New York City and those here in Santa Fe – and Los Angeles, and Grand Canyon Village and everywhere else across the country. Or maybe it was just a reminder of an idea that had already taken root in the minds of the people we met.

Or maybe it was nothing of the sort. Jon could tell those who asked what this cross meant to him, where it came from, where it was going and what he was doing with it in between. Any significance beyond that would be ascribed, aloud or in private, by the people who saw it along the way.

Grand Canyon: Common Ground in a Beautiful Place

In the parking lot near the Grand Canyon Visitor Center was a large group of Americans of South Asian descent, separated from us by a half dozen empty parking spaces. Five or six of them came over and the biggest guy asked, bluntly, “What is this for?”

Jon, in an explanation he’d already given a few dozen times but continued to do so with sincerity and humility, explained the connection of the I-beam cross found in the Trade Center rubble and this one. Then he invited them to write notes and put them into the heart of the cross.

For the first time, we saw people balk at the idea.

“You mean, like a prayer?” one of them asked.

“Could be,” Jon answered. “Or just a quick message, whatever you want.”

“But we’re not Christian.”

The idea, the question, had never come up until this moment. I wondered if Jon had considered the thought. I know I hadn’t.

“It’s all right,” Jon said. “To me this cross is a symbol for all people, all races, all backgrounds and religions.”

“How does this represent all religions?” asked a young man named Malind.

“Different parts come together to make this piece,” Jon explained. “On 9-11 all these firemen, and other people too, were all running around trying to help people. It didn’t matter who was what color or race or religion, it was just people sacrificing themselves to help others. It was people coming together. And I guess that’s what this piece means to me.”

I’m not sure if they were wholly convinced, but Malind and his friends quietly wrote notes and put them in the cross. I couldn’t hear what they were saying when they were back with their group. I only saw Malind and the others gesturing and pointing at the cross as they spoke.