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.

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. 

A Tennessee legislator's tweet that "the national media is promoting fear and sheer panic" earns well-deserved criticism. 

Gov. Bill Lee sticks to his guns, unmoved by pleas from law enforcement officials, mayors, gun merchants and firearms trainers. 

Election commission records show Robertson has participated in every presidential election going back to the 1970s – and no doubt long before that. And she rarely misses a Memphis municipal, county or state election, including primaries.

Far too many of this state’s political leaders have a paternalistic and chauvinistic attitude toward women. And what’s worse, these guys just don’t care how it looks.

The unspoken sentiment behind objections to relaxing residency rules appears to be the prospect that white officers from small towns in North Mississippi, West Tennessee and Eastern Arkansas would be policing unfamiliar territory in North Memphis, South Memphis and Orange Mound.

Instead of the word salad that came from Tennessee’s senior Republican senator late on the evening of Jan. 30, all we really needed was a single sentence.

State legislators and the Memphis and Shelby County mayors are among elected officials who have endorsed a presidential candidate and plan to campaign for their choice.

Republicans for the Rule of Law is advertising in Tennessee to drum up support for a fair Senate impeachment trial of Donald Trump. The group hopes to put pressure on Sen. Lamar Alexander to vote to have witnesses during the trial.

This political tempest involves the thorny issue of whether Tennessee should continue to participate in a federal refugee resettlement program.

Partisan anger for and against President Donald Trump will drive voters to the polls in high numbers. But other factors, such as health care, will play a role.

U.S. Attorney Michael Dunavant voiced support when the attorney general criticized communities that fail to show proper respect for law officers. Were they also concerned when Trump attacked FBI leaders? 

A $7 increase for enhanced trash collection stalled in a City Council vote. If the increase isn’t approved, 199 full-time Solid Waste employees will lose their jobs. 

Blighted property on Union at B.B. King Boulevard became AutoZone Park. A new hotel occupies the site of the bus station. Now Union Row has the potential to remake Downtown Memphis.