Columnist
Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-678-3669 or at o.sanford@memphis.edu. Follow him on Twitter @otissanford.
There are 95 articles by Otis Sanford :
Like the population they represent, current members of the Shelby County Commission are turning out to be the most disparate and eclectic group to be elected to a local legislative body in years – perhaps ever.
President Donald Trump has done next to nothing to engender trust from African Americans. In fact, he’s done the opposite. He lies incessantly and shows an interest in Black people only when it suits him politically.
As criminal justice reform continues to be debated in America, we must focus on whether we’ve gone too far over the last few decades in aggressive policing and over-incarcerating certain individuals.
The Republican-controlled state House and Senate – with Gov. Bill Lee as an accomplice – decided to make protesting on state property a felony, punishable by up to six years in prison.
Reader suggests a 'Votes for Bertha' campaign in honor of my mother, who faced down resistance to register to vote 56 years ago in Panola County. She would be so pleased.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is counting on his choice of running mate Kamala Harris to bring in new and reenergized voters in key battleground states.
A majority of Americans trust Dr. Anthony Fauci to tell the truth about the pandemic. But Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Manny Sethi, hoping to impress President Trump, says Fauci needs to go.
Many fans are not even at their seats when the anthem starts. They are purposefully milling around in the concourse waiting for tipoff. I don’t believe those fans are less patriotic than those standing at attention in the arena with their hands over their hearts. But spectators take the anthem for granted. And it’s time to end the ritual.
Redskins owner Dan Snyder for years ignored pleas to drop the moniker, telling USA Today in 2014 that he would never change it. Apparently Snyder has since watched Sean Connery’s last James Bond movie, “Never Say Never Again.”
College President Carol Johnson-Dean took the call announcing the largest endowment the 158-year-old school had ever received: “I literally began to cry.”
A study released this month found that men are less likely to wear masks in public than women. 'Men more than women agree that wearing a face covering is shameful, not cool, a sign of weakness, and a stigma,' one of the study’s authors said.
There is no denying that we are at a tipping point in this country’s long-overdue reckoning with race and police brutality. And our response to this moment has created three distinct groups – the objectors, the addressers and the deniers.
Johnson’s message was powerful as he urged Congress to pass voting rights legislation. Drawing from the gospel song that became a hymn of the civil rights movement, he said, “it is all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”
Edward Carmack’s statue in the Tennessee Capitol was among several monuments linked to racism and the Confederacy that bit the dust or were defaced during protests over the senseless killing of African Americans by police and vigilantes.
If this does not create sustained national outrage from the halls of government to the smallest police force in America, if this does not convince you that the Black Lives Matter movement had it right all along, nothing will.
Renaming Health Sciences Park after Ida B. Wells would honor one of the city’s most underappreciated historic figures.
Fred Davis, a charter member of the Memphis City Council, may have left elected office more than 40 years ago, he never stepped aside.
In the age of COVID-19, suspicions that police are not trustworthy must take a back seat to the certainty that this pandemic will spread without adequate safeguards.
I cherish the competitive newspaper environments that marked the early years of my career — in Jackson between The Clarion-Ledger and Daily News and in Memphis between The Commercial Appeal and Press-Scimitar.
Watching Alisa Haushalter, director of the Shelby County Health Department, explain our new reality in a calm, measured and fact-based tone, I came away with more optimism than pessimism about our prospects for overcoming this ruthless pandemic.
The dissension has filtered down to statehouses and into the streets, with thoughtless protesters thumbing their noses at social distancing and demanding that states end stay-at-home orders.
The disproportionate impact of the pandemic on African Americans shines a spotlight on racial disparities that translate into different health outcomes for whites and blacks.
The governor of Arkansas opposes allowing cities to issue their own stay-at-home orders, but that's not stopping Mayor Marco McClendon from moving forward with his curfew for West Memphis.
I knew that former Sen. Bob Corker briefly served as a Tennessee commissioner of finance. What I didn’t know is that Corker cares more about finances than human lives. I knew he had guts. I also thought he had a heart.
Many Memphis churches, particularly those with mostly African American congregations, have not suspended in-person worship, underscoring the importance the church has in African American life. But the ritual of gathering to worship, even in a spotlessly clean building, is now much too risky.