Vol. 1, Issue 4 April 2019 KEEPING YOU UP-TO-DATE MONTHLY WITH THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS IN SHELBY COUNTY, TN LETTER FROM THE EDITOR By Yvonne D. Nelson, Ph.D. There are always so many things to do, places to go, and people to see in and around Memphis, TN. This makes it extremely hard to pick up on every important event that is going on! This month, I had quite a few programs and events to choose from to attend. Several overlapping events meant that I had to attend one or another, which made the need for our citywide, free event online calendar even more obvious to me. So where do you look to find out what’s going on in Memphis? Please visit our blog at iLoveShelbyCounty.com soon to let us know where else we can be looking for events to attend too! We have now successfully published NEWSCENE for our first full quarter with this edition. We are looking forward to being able to present a few hundred print copies during our next quarter and we invite you to join our advisory board and to make a tax-deductible contribution to our success. As you know, we depend heavily on you to spread the word about NEWSCENE. Your willingness to share links to featured stories to create new viewers, your desire to submit calendar events, pictures, and stories about events that have recently taken place, and your desire to support us through advertisements featuring local businesses and activities is appreciated. This newsletter is for you and about you and the things you know about that are happening in your communities. I am depending on you to make sure I have accurate meeting dates and fresh content for each monthly NEWSCENE edition. Call me at 901-300-0250, write me at I Love Shelby County, Attn: Senior Publicist, P.O. Box 9146, Memphis, TN 38190-0146, or email Memphis.Meetings@gmail.com. We definitely want to hear from you soon! Thank you, Yvonne Pictured after the marker unveiling are (from left) Dr. Tyrone Davis, Rev. William Smith, Ron Walter, Bishop William Graves, Dr. Peatchola Jones-Cole, Jimmy Ogle, Dr. Earnestine Jenkins, Rev. O. C. Collins, and Timothy S. Good. As the story goes, three black male grocery store owners, Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and William Henry Stewart, were killed, near the intersection of Mississippi Boulevard and Walker Avenue in Memphis, TN, by a white mob on March 9, 1892. Why, you ask? Historians will tell you for the simple reason that they were guilty of being honest economic competitors to a white grocery store owner in the area at the time. Was that the reason given? No. The local paper accused these men of holding a secret conspiracy meeting and plotting a war against whites. Similar lynching’s of the time relied on false claims of sexual assault or unreasonable acts of blacks against whites. Moss’s gravesite (shown above) was found in the late-1990s. It has been written, by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others, that black economic values were on the rise in the late 1890s; however, due to restraints placed on black people by the federal and state governments, Supreme Court rulings, and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, these efforts were stopped through various measures including lynching's. Wells-Barnett’s story continues, “...in the wee hours of the night, 75 men stormed the walls of the Shelby County Jail, and a small group entered in search of Moss, McDowell, and Stewart. The three men were dragged from their cells, loaded onto a switch engine that ran at the back of the jail house, transported to a railroad yard north of the city’s limits, and shot to death in retaliation.” Story and Pictures by Dr. Yvonne D. Nelson 127 YEARS LATER, THOMAS MOSS’ GRAVE GETS A HISTORIC MARKER
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