RowVaughn and Rodney Wells held hands and danced New Year’s Day. They stood side-by-side in the Cannon Center. They wiggled their hips in rhythm with the band. 

RowVaughn sat on the window sill for a moment and rested. Rodney kept dancing.

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The private moment playing out in plain sight illustrated that, for a change, the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols were in public but were not the center of attention. 

They were just another set of guests attending Memphis Mayor Paul Young’s inauguration, mixing into the crowd. For at least that day, the burden of their grief did not come with the burden of the limelight. 

RowVaughn Wells has now carried the burden of her son’s death at the hands of five now-former Memphis police officers for a year. For a year, she has preached peace, something she did again Sunday, Jan. 7, when she decried “stupid, stupid violence” of all kinds. 

Tyre Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, from the injuries he sustained during a beating three days earlier, just a few hundred yards from his mom’s house. 

In the year since, his family has sued the City of Memphis and Memphis Police Department Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis for violating his civil rights. The U.S. Department of Justice has begun an investigation into MPD as to whether it habitually violates the civil rights of Black Memphians.

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Memphis also grappled with a surge of gun violence that had it setting a new homicide record. It dealt with a spate of car thefts and business break-ins. As the federal government sought police reform in Memphis, it also sent legal help for the police — a push of resources to combat organized crime. 

In the days around the anniversary, there has been some civic introspection as to whether Memphis has changed. Shelby County District Attorney General Steve Mulroy said the quick charging of the officers involved and the quick release of the video helped quell the possibility of violence in Memphis. Chief Davis said the department had learned some lessons. 

But not everyone agrees with that. 

If Memphis has healed — or if it has at least scarred — it is because of RowVaughn Wells, one pastor said. 

“If we are to give one person credit, it is RowVaughn Wells,” said J. Lawrence Turner, pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, where Nichols’ funeral was held. “It is her strength in the midst of her sadness that made sure this city didn’t erupt in violence.

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“That was the passionate plea of a grieving mother that if anyone had a right to be violent, that would have been her, but yet, she called for peace.

“I don’t think we can give credit to the government... We can’t credit them with keeping the peace.” 

“If we are to give one person credit, it is RowVaughn Wells. It is her strength in the midst of her sadness that made sure this city didn’t erupt in violence.”

J. Lawrence Turner
Pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church

In the process of healing 

Memphis has not yet healed but is in the process of doing so, a process that could take some time, said Van Turner, the former president of NAACP Memphis Branch and a 2023 mayoral candidate.

In an interview, Van Turner noted Ben Crump, the civil rights lawyer who is among Nichols’ attorneys, has added cases in the Memphis area, including several involving the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. 

The suit between Nichols’ family and the city is still pending as is the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation. Those two things — the suit and investigation — need closure before the city fully heals, he said.

“I think you can have … healing after that point,” Van Turner said. “But as it stands now, I think we’re still in a situation where we’re healing from it.”

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J. Lawrence Turner is among those who advocated for the DOJ to investigate MPD even though he still sees a clear need for a robust police force.

He described the city’s twin needs — a reformed MPD and a robust MPD — a “twoness,” a duality that the city occupies after a year that began with Nichols’ death and ended with record-breaking homicides.

 “When I say that one side of this has definitely been the skepticism towards law enforcement but at the same time the necessity for law enforcement in the midst of a wave of crime that is happening in our city,” J. Lawrence Turner said. 

“We definitely want higher standards exhibited by our police department. We also want to live in a community that’s safe,” J. Lawrence Turner said of what he hears from his congregation. 

Both Turners, who are not related, viewed what is happening in Memphis as starting not when Tyre Nichols died but when George Floyd died in Minneapolis in 2020. The push for reform after Nichols’ death was a continuation of a movement already underway.

“I think there’s where you start seeing maybe a change, and you started seeing the community taking a relook at its relationship with law enforcement,” Van Turner said of Floyd’s death. “These events are happening elsewhere, but we haven’t had anything like this. And then you get to Tyre Nichols, and it brings it home.” 

Nichols remembered as kind, talented

Tyre Nichols loved skateboarding and was a skilled photographer. 

His sister Keyana Dixon told The Daily Memphian a year ago he was true to himself. He made friends easily. People who met him at a Starbucks in Germantown described him as someone with a kind soul.

“After we left, my wife said, ‘I really liked his soul,’” Nate Spates Jr. said at his memorial service in January 2023. “It’s one thing to say something about somebody as a person. But when you reference their soul, that’s deep.”

On Sunday, at a vigil to honor the one-year anniversary of the beating Nichols suffered, RowVaughn Wells remembered her son. She wore a Los Angeles Clippers cap just like he did in perhaps the most well-known photo of him. She spoke of how he competed with her other kids to call her first on Christmas. 

She said she wants to remember Nichols the way he was before he was beaten.

“I’ve never seen that video, and I’ll never see it” she said.

Another voice Sunday night weighed in on what it would take for the city to heal. 

State Rep. Justin J. Pearson, who turned 29 Sunday, spoke before RowVaughn Wells. He spoke of how he had come to know the Wells family. He’s learned about them and observed them grieving in a public way. 

He spoke of how they had borne the burden of being in the public light and had not stopped fighting for a better Memphis. 

“As winds blow, they hold the flame of hope,” Pearson said. “They hold onto the possibility of a different future… That this is not how the story ends, that there is a Memphis where everyone is safer, there is a Memphis where the police are not killing us in the city streets… there is a Memphis where children are making it home to mama.” 

Aarron Fleming, Kambui Bomani and Julia Baker contributed to this story.