May 8 marks 100 years since Tom Lee rescued 32 people from the Mississippi River south of Memphis when their boat, the M.E. Norman, capsized.

Lee, a Black man who had worked on the river for many years, had rescued some of the city’s most prominent white citizens. The aftermath of the rescue changed Lee’s life, and the account became one of the city’s best-known river stories after Lee’s death in 1952 from cancer.

Over time, the story itself was simplified and its aftermath faded. But starting in the late 1990s, a series of events brought Lee’s story and that of the M.E. Norman back into the spotlight, but with a new lens and perspective.

Beneath the tale’s simple surface were more complex undercurrents about the events on the river that day, how the story was told, who Lee really was, the anonymity that he came from and what Memphis was like 100 years ago.

This series from The Daily Memphian, “The Making of a Hero,” explores all of those chapters in a story as wide and deep as the Mississippi River. It’s as essential to understanding the city’s enduring identity as the stories handed down from generation to generation of the families that are Memphis.

The Making of a Hero: 100 years ago, an engineers' convention turned deadly

On May 8, 1925, about 100 years ago, a steamboat capsized in the Mississippi River — a disaster that forced dozens of men, women and children to fight for their life against the current until a brave Memphian, a veteran river worker, reached out to help.

The Making of a Hero: Who was Tom Lee?

A headstone in Mt. Carmel Cemetery shows Tom Lee was born Feb. 18, 1885, and died April 1, 1952. Between those two dates, Lee mostly lived in Memphis.

The Making of a Hero: What happened to Tom Lee after the river rescue

When Tom Lee arrived on the Memphis riverfront May 9, 1925, the morning after that long night, he began encountering people who already knew his name and knew the bravery of what he’d done.

The Making of a Hero: What Calvin Coolidge told Tom Lee at White House

A decade after the meeting, an unbylined column in The Commercial Appeal offered a reason behind Tom Lee’s decision to cut short his visit to the nation’s capital.

The Making of a Hero: What was happening in Memphis in May 1925?

Here’s a look at what was happening in Memphis in May of 1925 as an engineers’ convention, that included a riverboat cruise south on the Mississippi River, met in Downtown Memphis.

The Making of a Hero: After fading, Tom Lee’s story resurfaces

Forty years after he died, a group of descendants and others began to reassemble the scattered puzzle pieces of Tom Lee’s heroism.

The Making of a Hero: The bend that took down the M.E. Norman riverboat

The series of turns in the Mississippi River just south of Memphis has claimed boats before and was known for strong currents. It has changed in the century since the M.E. Norman capsized and sank to the river’s muddy bottom.

The Making of a Hero: Tom Lee’s legacy

Tom Lee’s story endures because it has avoided the racial trip wires and political calculations of his time. It appeals to Memphians as part of a larger undercurrent in the city’s history.

The Making of a Hero: Tom Lee, E. H. Crump and race

The civic praise and pride in Tom Lee had its roots in political manipulation by white leaders. But Lee’s place in Memphis history has endured despite the daunting racism of the times in which he lived.