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From The New York Times Protesters blocking traffic on Friday night in Memphis after a video of the police killing of Tyre Nichols was released. Credit...Desiree Rios/The New York Times MEMPHIS — On April 3, 1968, shortly before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would deliver what turned out to be his last speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” at a Memphis church packed with striking sanitation workers, the Rev. James M. Lawson Jr., a local minister and national strategis

On Thursday, Christine Blasey Ford was the voice for those of us who are still haunted by decades-old assaults — including me. Christine Blasey Ford testifying Thursday on Capitol Hill.Credit. Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times One of the most telling moments of Thursday’s Senate hearing for me — a survivor of rape at a drunken high school party when I was 16 — came during a reply to one of Senator Patrick Leahy’s questions for Christine Blasey Ford. He asked her to des

In 1968, 1,300 African- American sanitation workers in Memphis demanded that the world treat them as fully human. Their courage, dignity, love and persistence during that fateful 65-day strike, meant their children and grandchildren have found opportunities to become entrepreneurs, academics, corporate, medical and non-profit professionals, and more. A few even work in today’s sanitation department, but with much-improved conditions, because of the fight their fathers and mot

Starred Review This wonderful book is a powerful reminder that moral clarity can improve the world. As a boy, Lawson had a “transcendent” experience: “a voice beyond myself” forbid him from responding to racist taunts with violence. Thus began his lifelong commitment to nonviolence, which guided his work as an adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and an organizer of sit-ins, strikes, and marches that helped to overturn discriminatory laws. A Methodist pastor who died in 2024, hi

A statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest was removed from a park in Memphis late Wednesday. A statue of Jefferson Davis was also taken down. Credit: Brandon Dill for The New York Times MEMPHIS — Charlene Harmon and her fiancé, Victor Bryant, walked Thursday through a small park overlooking the Mississippi River, pleased by the view — and what it did not include. “I feel a sense of relief,” said Ms. Harmon, 63, a retired nurse. “Finally, we can come down and really enjoy this park.

From The New York Times THIS is what I know. When I was 16, after most everybody had left a big, alcohol-fueled party in a hotel suite, I passed out drunk. Then, a star football player at my Memphis high school picked me up off the floor, carried me to the bed and raped me. His girlfriend and one other male classmate were also in the room at the time. They did not stop him. That was three decades ago. I don’t bring it up much. But it still comes up sometimes, in my head, anyw

And family friend William Eggleston, his camera at his side, felt compelled to shoot From Smithsonian Magazine "I always thought of Bill as like us," says Karen Chatham (left), "until years later, when I realized that he was famous." William Eggleston The details are a bit sketchy now, but everyone agrees the picture was taken in Memphis, Tennessee, on a late summer night in 1973. Karen Chatham, the young woman in blue, recalls that she had been out drinking when she met up w

From Time Magazine I was all set to have my regular chat on the phone last week with my 19-year-old niece Chloe, a sophomore at Harvard, when I got an e-mail from her asking if we could reschedule. She was so busy with schoolwork, she said in her message, that she couldn't spare any time to talk with her dear aunt for the rest of the week. A few days later came the full transcript of the notorious remarks by the president of her university, Lawrence Summers, who evidently has