Tom Lee anniversary reflects larger changes after hero’s life
“He was just the embodiment of a good man,” said Terry Watts (right) holding his grandson, Jaylen Shields, at Fourth Bluff Park during a Tom Lee Day celebration May 8, 2021. Watts is the great-great-nephew of Tom Lee. (Patrick Lantrip/Daily Memphian)
The 2006 sculpture honoring Tom Lee’s 1925 rescue of 32 people from the Mississippi River is a prominent part of plans to remake the popular park. But the fate of a 1954 monument that refers to Lee as a “very worthy Negro” is uncertain.
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Tom Lee Tom Lee Park redesign Charmeal Neely Alexander Terry Watts Steve CohenBill Dries on demand
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Bill Dries
Bill Dries covers city and county government and politics. He is a native Memphian and has been a reporter for almost 50 years covering a wide variety of stories from the 1977 death of Elvis Presley and the 1978 police and fire strikes to numerous political campaigns, every county mayor and every Memphis Mayor starting with Wyeth Chandler.
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