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Memphis is a city along the Mississippi River in southwestern Shelby County, Tennessee, United States. Its 2020 population was 633,104, making it Tennessee's second-most populous city behind Nashville; fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest; and the largest city proper of those situated along the Mississippi River. Greater Memphis is the 42nd-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 1,348,260 in 2017. The city is the anchor of West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi, and the Missouri Bootheel. Memphis is the seat of Shelby County, Tennessee's most populous county. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods.
West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers, delineated by state law. Its geography consists primarily of flat lands with rich soil and vast floodplain areas of the Mississippi River. Of the three regions, West Tennessee is the most sharply defined geographically, and is the lowest-lying. It is both the least populous and smallest, in land area, of the three Grand Divisions. Its largest city is Memphis, the state's second most populous city.
A. Maceo Walker was an American businessman who led expansion of the Universal Life Insurance Company, founded by his father Joseph Edison Walker in Memphis, Tennessee. Together with his father in 1946, he founded the Tri-State Bank of Memphis, still a going concern.
The history of Memphis, Tennessee and its area began many thousands of years ago with succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples. In the first millennium, it was settled by the Mississippian Culture. The Chickasaw Indian tribe emerged about the 17th century, or migrated into the area. The earliest European exploration may have encountered remnants of the Mississippian culture by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto. Later French explorers led by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle likely encountered the Chickasaw. The European-American city of Memphis was not founded until 1819. The city was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River in North Africa. It rapidly developed as a major trading center for cotton cultivated at the region's large plantations and dependent on the work of enslaved African Americans. In the 19th century, and especially 1878 and 1879, the city suffered severe yellow fever epidemics. In 1878 tens of thousands of residents fled and more than 5,000 died, with hundreds more dying in the next year's epidemic, causing the city to go bankrupt and give up its charter until 1893.
Robert Reed Church Sr. was an African-American entrepreneur, businessman and landowner in Memphis, Tennessee, who began his rise during the American Civil War. He was the first African-American "millionaire" in the South. Church built a reputation for great wealth and influence in the business community. He founded Solvent Savings Bank, the first black-owned bank in the city, which extended credit to blacks so they could buy homes and develop businesses. As a philanthropist, Church used his wealth to develop a park, playground, auditorium and other facilities for the black community, who were excluded by state-enacted racial segregation from most such amenities in the city.
Ell Persons was an African-American man who was lynched on 22 May 1917, after he was accused of having raped and decapitated a 15-year-old white girl, Antoinette Rappel, in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. He was arrested and was awaiting trial when he was captured by a lynch party, who burned him alive and scattered his remains around town, throwing his head at a group of African Americans. A large crowd attended his lynching, which had the atmosphere of a carnival. No one was charged as a result of the lynching, which was described as one of the most vicious in American history, but it did play a part in the foundation of the Memphis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Richard “Tuff” Green was a jazz and R&B bassist and bandleader.
R.S. Lewis & Sons Funeral Home has operated continuously in downtown Memphis, Tennessee since 1914.
Elma Johnson Stuckey (1907–1988) was an African American poet. Her poetry concerned the lives of black people from the days of slavery up through the late 1980s.
Russell Bertram Sugarmon Jr. was an American politician and judge in the state of Tennessee.
African Americans are among the largest ethnic groups in the state of Tennessee, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War. The state, and particularly the major cities of Memphis and Nashville have played important roles in African-American culture and the Civil Rights Movement. The majority of African Americans in Tennessee reside in the western part of the state, with much smaller Black populations in the central and eastern (Appalachian) regions of the state.
Clara Arena Brawner was the only African-American woman physician in Memphis, Tennessee, in the mid-1950s.
Maxine (Atkins) Smith born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, was an academic, civil rights activist, and school board official.
Josiah "Joe" Thomas Settle was a lawyer in Washington, D.C., Sardis, Mississippi, and Memphis, Tennessee. He was a part of Howard University's first graduating class in 1872. In 1875, he moved to Mississippi and was elected a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1883. In 1885 he moved to Memphis where he was appointed Assistant Attorney-General in Shelby County. He held that position for two years before turning to private practice.
Greene Fort Pinkston was an African-American doctor and landowner in Cordova, Tennessee.
L. Alex Wilson (1909–1960) was an American journalist and editor who rose to prominence during the civil rights movement. He covered the Emmett Till murder for the African-American oriented, Chicago Defender chain, while serving as the editor of the Memphis-based Tri-State Defender. In 1957, Wilson was covering the Little Rock Nine school desegregation crises when a white mob beat and injured him. He recovered, and continued as an editor in Chicago, but the wounds he received in Little Rock likely shortened his life.
Green Polonius Hamilton was an American educator, principal, and author who was prominent in the African-American community of Memphis, Tennessee.
Miriam DeCosta-Willis was an American educator, writer, and civil rights activist. The first African American faculty member at Memphis State University, having previously been denied admission to the school as a graduate student due to her race, she spent her career as a professor of Romance languages and African American studies at a variety of colleges in Memphis and the Washington, D.C., area. She published over a dozen books throughout her career, largely dealing with Afro-Latino literature and Black Memphis history.
Onzie O. Horne was an American arranger, businessman, conductor, disc jockey, and musician. He worked with Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Sammy Davis Jr, Rufus Thomas and BB King and was the first African American to conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
References
- 1 2 3 "Willis Jr., Archie Walter "A. W." Tennessee Encyclopedia".
- 1 2 "Archie Walter "A.W." Willis, Jr". www.wknofm.org. 14 May 2009.
- ↑ "Ebony". Johnson Publishing Company. April 1965.
- ↑ "Miriam DeCosta-Willis (1934-2021)". Memphis Public Libraries. 2021-01-07. Retrieved 2021-05-11.
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