When Uncle Lou’s Fried Chicken opened on April 4, 2001, proprietor Louis Martin never dreamed it would reach national prominence on the Food Network.
Now the new series “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives is filming a segment on the popular fried chicken eatery via Zoom, the digital meeting platform.
“I don’t guess I’ll ever get used to being a so-called celebrity,” said Martin. “For years, I was struggling just to keep the doors open. Two months before my first appearance on the Food Network in 2008, I almost closed the doors.”
Martin has one more session to film for the segment, and the producers will then give him an airing date for the show. Although the COVID-19 pandemic is preventing the network from filming at the restaurant at 3633 Millbranch Rd., Martin is thrilled about the upcoming episode.
“The virus isn’t stopping anything,” Martin said. “We started filming on Zoom about 14 or 15 days ago. This is new for me, but I’m just so grateful to be included on Chef Fieri’s new show.
Meanwhile in the age of COVID-19, Martin has learned anew never to “count your chickens before they hatch.”
“Now, I’m just saying we plan to re-open our dining area on June 1,” said Martin.
Uncle Lou’s has been serving orders through curbside and delivery, only, since restaurants were ordered to close down dining rooms to control Covid-19 community spread.
“Anything can happen with this coronavirus. There could be another breakout over the weekend, and we’re right back at square one. I’ll just put it like this: If nothing happens between now and then, we will open the inside for dining on Monday.”
Even partially closed, Uncle Lou’s has been thriving with a steady stream of cars wheeling in customers ordering take-out and picking up orders. For many, the eatery long has been the destination point for good, Southern Fried Chicken. His earlier appearance on the Food Network helped foster that reputation.
“(P)eople come here every year from Australia and England,” said Martin. “Some come here every time they get to Memphis. I will always be grateful.”
Martin launched his restaurant with very little money, his great grandmother’s recipe and a dream. Uncle Lou’s was his fifth attempt at running a successful restaurant.
“Every time I had to close, I learned some valuable lessons from that experience,” he said. “I learned what not to do next time, because there was definitely going to be a ‘next time.’ I’m going to keep going until I can’t go any more. That’s just the kind of fella I am.”
Martin has been asked “about a million times” what the secret is to his chicken.
The recipe came from his great-grandmother, Rosie Gillespie, who passed the recipe to Martin’s mother.
“My mother was just a teenager when she got the recipe,” Martin said. “Whether my great-grandmother made it up herself or it was passed down to her, I don’t really know. My great-grandmother was from Mississippi. Her people were from Mississippi. I don’t know much more than that.”
His mother died in 2014. She wrote the family history down for Martin and his brother when they were teenagers. That was 30 years ago and that history has been lost.
The “breading” over the chicken holds the secret to its unique flavor, said Martin. The sauce is his own invention.
A native Memphian, Martin is a 1977 graduate of Hamilton High School, where he took two years of a then-new vocational course called, “Commercial Food.”
There is a long road ahead to recovery, especially for communities of color, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This bleak forecast was reiterated Tuesday during a town hall meeting hosted by Tennessee Black Caucus members.
During the virtual meeting, the group of lawmakers focused on issues that have disproportionately affected African Americans during the current health crisis.
And, as members settle back into their legislative sessions at the state Capitol this week, they reassured citizens that these issues will be a top focus on their agendas.
Topping that list was healthcare, economic empowerment and the upcoming elections. At the center of it all, though, was ensuring that African Americans “come out better before than before the pandemic hit.”
“We’re in this together,” State Rep. Jesse Chism (D-85) said. “And I believe that we can come out stronger if we do what we have to do.”
Among the list of “do’s” was focusing on overall health during the pandemic.
Rep. G.A. Hardaway (D-93) said it needs to be a primary focus for African Americans, who are more likely to have underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and asthma that can contribute to the mortality rate of COVID-19.
“Many of these were already issues in our communities, but have gotten worse because of the pandemic,” Hardaway said. “That’s why education is important. First educate yourselves and then go out and educate others.”
In Shelby County, that disparity is represented. Of COVID-19 related deaths, 75 percent were African American, according to data released by the Shelby County Health Department in April. Among diagnosed cases recorded so far by race, 71 percent are African-American.
Data showed that of the local COVID-19 deaths, 80 percent also had some kind of pre-existing condition.
The Health Department also reported the highest percentage of the county’s coronavirus cases — not deaths – is among people ages 25 to 34. Hardaway said “young people” should take heed to those numbers.
“Young folks, you’re killing your parents and grandparents,” he cautioned during the meeting. “We have to make sure that we’re taking all of the safety measures –washing your hands, wearing masks, social distancing…”
Hardaway also acknowledged the dilemma that exists for some African Americans, who may not be able to social distance due to a less than ideal housing situation.
“For some of us in our communities, social distancing may be us moving to the other side of the couch,” he said, adding that it’s important to still “do what you can.”
While staying healthy was the primary concern, caucus members said the road to recovery will also include economic empowerment.
State Sen. Katrina Robinson (D-33) presented a host of state and county resources aimed at helping small-businesses.
She referenced the findings of a recent survey conducted by the Greater Memphis Chamber, that surveyed 600 businesses across the city. The results included responses given between March 19-23and then again between April 22-27.
Sixty-five percent indicated that business was down more than 11 percent compared to this time last year.
“For those who aren’t affected – good for them,” Robinson said. “But for those, especially black-owned businesses that are, it’s going to be difficult to bounce back,”
According to the chamber’s survey, 81 percent of local businesses have already applied for federal assistance, with only half receiving approval or even feedback, so far.
That’s why Robinson said support within the African-American community will be critical on the road to recovery.
“We have to shop local and make sure you’re supporting local businesses,” she said. “I know many people are going through tough times, but if you have to buy, buy local and support those who look like us and will actually put the money back into our community.”
Caucus members said elections will be pivotal. And for that reason, they want to be sure that people are poised to vote despite the concerns of contracting COVID-19.
State Rep. Lamar London (D-91), a strong advocate for universal absentee voting, took the time to push for the measure that will allow anyone in Tennessee who wants to vote via absentee ballot to request the opportunity to do so.
“Elections are one of the fairest ways people of color can have a say about what goes on in our communities,” Lamar said. “And we have a lot of concerns as a black caucus of having people vote in person. The governor (Bill Lee) is asking people to risk their lives and go to the polls and that’s not right.”
Lamar urged voters to call on Tennessee Lee to support universal absentee voting by executive order.
“This is not a partisan issue, it’s about people.”
The next election, on Aug. 6, will be for federal and state primaries, and the county General Election.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — To the general public, the video of a white police officer pressing his knee into the neck of a black man prone on the street, crying out for help until he finally stopped moving, was horrifying.
Four officers were fired a day after George Floyd’s death, a stunning and swift move by the Minneapolis chief with the mayor’s full backing. But despite their dismissal, whether the incident will be considered criminal, or even excessive force, is a more complicated question that will likely take months to investigate.
The officers were dismissed soon after a bystander’s video taken outside a south Minneapolis grocery store Monday night showed an officer kneeling on the handcuffed man’s neck, even after he pleaded that he could not breathe and stopped moving. Floyd’s death prompted protests Tuesday, with thousands taking to the streets at the intersection where he died.
Many protesters marched more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) to the police precinct station in that part of the city, with some damaging the building’s windows and squad cars and spraying graffiti. Police in riot gear eventually confronted them with tear gas and projectiles, with tense skirmishes stretching late into the evening.
Bridgett Floyd told NBC’s “Today” show in an interview Wednesday morning that the officers involved in her brother’s death should be charged with murder because “that’s exactly what they did.” She said she hadn’t watched the bystander’s video, but told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “I don’t understand how someone could possibly let an individual go out like that.”
Mayor Jacob Frey announced the firings on Twitter, saying: “This is the right call.”
The FBI and state law enforcement were investigating Floyd’s death, which immediately drew comparisons to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who died in 2014 in New York after he was placed in a chokehold by police and pleaded for his life, saying he could not breathe.
But in the Garner case, local prosecutors, the NYPD’s internal affairs unit, and the Justice Department all finished investigations into the case before the officer was ultimately fired. Garner’s family and activists spent years begging for the officer to be removed.
The officers in the Minneapolis incident haven’t even been publicly identified, though one defense attorney has confirmed he is representing Derek Chauvin, the officer seen with his knee on Floyd’s neck. The attorney, Tom Kelly, declined to comment further.
The police union asked the public to wait for the investigation to take its course and not to “rush to judgment and immediately condemn our officers.” Messages left with the union after the firings were not returned.
During Tuesday’s protests, some chanted and carried banners that read, “I can’t breathe” and “Jail killer KKKops.” And some stacked shopping carts to make a barricade at a Target store across the street from the station.
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said the department would conduct a full internal investigation, and prosecutors will decide whether to file criminal charges against the officers involved. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said it was “shocked and saddened” by the video and pledged to handle the case fairly. Part of that investigation will likely focus on the intent of the officers, whether they meant to harm Floyd or whether it was a death that happened in the course of police work. The FBI was investigating whether the officers willfully deprived Floyd of his civil rights.
News accounts show Chauvin was one of six officers who fired their weapons in the 2006 death of Wayne Reyes, who police said pointed a sawed-off shotgun at officers after stabbing two people. Chauvin also shot and wounded a man in 2008 during a struggle after Chauvin and his partner responded to a reported domestic assault. Police did not immediately respond to a request for Chauvin’s service record.
In Minneapolis, kneeling on a suspect’s neck is allowed under the department’s use-of-force policy for officers who have received training in how to compress a neck without applying direct pressure to the airway. It is considered a “non-deadly force option,” according to the department’s policy handbook.
A chokehold is considered a deadly force option and involves someone obstructing the airway. According to the department’s use-of-force policy, officers are to use only an amount of force necessary that would be objectively reasonable.
But two use-of-force experts told The Associated Press that the officer clearly restrained the man too long, noting that the man was under control and no longer fighting. Andrew Scott, a former Boca Raton, Florida, police chief who now testifies as an expert witness in use-of-force cases, called Floyd’s death “a combination of not being trained properly or disregarding their training.”
“He couldn’t move. He was telling them he couldn’t breathe, and they ignored him,” Scott said. “I can’t even describe it. It was difficult to watch.”
In a post on his Facebook page, the mayor, who is white, apologized Tuesday to the black community for the officer’s treatment of Floyd, 46, who worked security at a restaurant.
“Being Black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a Black man’s neck. Five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you’re supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense,” Frey posted.
Police said the man matched the description of a suspect in a forgery case at a grocery store, and that he resisted arrest.
The video starts with the man on the ground, and does not show what happened in the moments prior. The unidentified officer is kneeling on his neck, ignoring his pleas. “Please, please, please, I can’t breathe. Please, man,” said Floyd, who has his face against the pavement.
Even in the coronavirus pandemic that has killed nearly 100,000 people in the U.S. and prompted police departments around the country to change how they’re doing work, the officers in the video aren’t wearing masks. In some cities, low-level arrests such as attempted forgery are skipped right now.
Floyd also moans. One of the officers tells him to “relax.” Floyd calls for his mother and says: “My stomach hurts, my neck hurts, everything hurts … I can’t breathe.” As bystanders shout their concern, one officer says, “He’s talking, so he’s breathing.”
But Floyd slowly becomes motionless under the officer’s restraint. The officer does not remove his knee until the man is loaded onto a gurney by paramedics.
Several witnesses had gathered on a nearby sidewalk, some recording the scene on their phones. The bystanders become increasingly agitated. One man yells repeatedly. “He’s not responsive right now!” Two witnesses, including one woman who said she was a Minneapolis firefighter, yell at the officers to check the man’s pulse. “Check his pulse right now and tell me what it is!” she said.
At one point, an officer says: “Don’t do drugs, guys.” And one man yells, “Don’t do drugs, bro? What is that? What do you think this is?”
The Hennepin County medical examiner identified Floyd but said the cause of death was pending.
Floyd had worked security for five years at a restaurant called Conga Latin Bistro and rented a home from the restaurant’s owner, Jovanni Thunstrom.
He was “a good friend, person and a good tenant,” the restaurateur told the Star Tribune. “He was family. His co-workers and friends loved him.”
Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights and personal injury attorney, said he had been hired by Floyd’s family.
The death came amid outrage over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, who was fatally shot Feb. 23 in Georgia after a white father and son pursued the 25-year-old black man they had spotted running in their subdivision. More than two months passed before charges were brought. Crump also represents Arbery’s father.
(Associated Press writers Gretchen Ehlke in Milwaukee and Todd Richmond in Madison, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.)
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – A recent NAACP “Black Media Speaks” forum plummeted into a conversation in which the future of hard-copy, black-owned newspapers was all but pronounced dead.
To the shock of some of the members of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), A federation of more than 200 black-owned newspapers, there was not one black newspaper journalist or publisher on the panel.
“In 2020, for there to be a virtual panel on Black Media and not invite or involve the NNPA or any of our member publishers to be on the panel goes beyond a mere oversight,” said NNPA President/CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis in an interview about the May 20 forum. “We’re certainly going to meet about it as part of our ongoing strategic alliance between the NAACP and the NNPA.”
Hosted by NAACP President/CEO Derrick Johnson and moderated by journalist Ed Gordon of Ed Gordon Media, formerly of BET, the forum had been widely promoted by the NAACP as a discussion on the need for Black media during the coronavirus pandemic and continued physical attacks on black people by police and others. Those topics were barely mentioned during the entire hour.
Chavis was particularly taken-aback by remarks from panelists who painted a grim picture about the future of black newspapers. Perhaps most notably were comments by Earl “Butch” Graves, president/CEO of Black Enterprise Magazine.
Graves was responding to a caller who identified herself as a second-generation publisher among those still “on the front line”. She asked how members of the panel would use their positions to support black print publications.
At first, Gordon responded briefly: “This is all about survival at this point.” Gordon mentioned how he’d worked closely with Real Times Media CEO Hiram Jackson to assure the survival of several of his black-owned newspapers – such as the Michigan Chronicle and the Chicago Defender – now fully online. Then Graves weighed in heavily.
“We can’t be tone deaf though,” Graves said. “The reality is it’s like those that are in retail that thought that retail would always survive…Print is not going to survive. It will not be here five years from now. That’s a hard pill to swallow but it is a reality. So, either you reinvent or you die. And the reality is that now black-owned media companies need to accept that cold hard fact.”
Dorothy Tucker, president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) and a long time reporter for CBS, Channel 2 in Chicago, had stated earlier that there are “170 African-American newspapers that still exist.” And, she said, “It is critical that we as African-Americans support black-owned media,” including historic black newspapers that fought for the freedom of black people and continue to do so.
Underscoring the need for a black newspaper representative on the panel, Chavis said Tucker’s number, 170, was inaccurate. Based on the NNPA member papers received at the D.C.-based NNPA headquarters, he said, there are 220 NNPA newspapers in print and 10 online publications that are Black-owned.
Following up on Tucker’s point, Graves continued, “We probably don’t need 176 – or whatever the number is exactly, Dorothy…We will probably need less than that. But those will have to survive doing it a different way. You cannot continue to print and survive…We can see this right now. Print will not survive. Therefore, we will have to do something in a different capacity to make this work.”
Chavis reflected on the videotaped forum. “It was like our epitaph. They were having the funeral, the eulogy, and the final rites.” But, he noted, this is historically how the Black Press has been treated.
“For 193 years, the black-owned press, since the days of Freedom’s Journal, has faced the negative speculative and false analysis – not just from white supremacists about the value of the Black Press – but sometimes the history will show that at one point some of our own people also attempted to undervalue the purpose, the mission, and the sustainability of the Black Press.
“By analogy, this is the same argument that people have said about HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and the same questions about the need for the continuation of the historic black church,” Chavis said.
“If there’s any person of African dissent who does not know the value of the black-owned church, black-owned HBCUs (and) black-owned newspapers, then that person or group of people of African descent needs to re-immerse themselves in the history and the long struggle of African people to build our own institutions, to build our own businesses, and to have our own voice in all of the media platforms – print, digital, online and social media.”
Denise Rolark Barnes, publisher of the Washington (DC) Informer newspaper and former NNPA chair, emailed a letter expressing “disgust” about the forum to NAACP Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications Aba Blankson.
She wrote that the Informer staff felt “consistent disrespect by the NAACP and NABJ. They shared their observations about how often black journalists are featured in discussions about Black Media, who have never worked for the Black Press.”
Barnes continued, “Understandably, we are all bewildered about why the nation’s oldest civil rights organization would allow a discussion [about] Black media ownership without having someone from the nation’s oldest black media ownership organization – the NNPA – at the table. This happens all too often, and I join my colleagues in expressing my disgust.”
Readers know and the NAACP is “ignorant of” how the Black Press is growing more robust even in the midst of COVID-19, Barnes wrote.
“We are the ones on the ground, bringing to life the stories of how COVID-19 is affecting Black communities across the country. We are telling the under-reported stories of our survival despite an administration that has abandoned us, and organizations – including the NAACP – that ignores us. In print, we report these stories weekly, but online, we publish them every day.”
Blankson responded the next day, directing a letter to Barnes, Chavis, NNPA Senior National Correspondent Stacy Brown, and the “NNPA Family.” Both letters were copied to the Trice Edney News Wire.
“Our partnership with the NNPA is important to us,” Blankson wrote. “We value our shared engagements and take pride in sharing articles from the Washington Informer, Afro, Defender and others in the weekly news recaps distributed to our networks. While it was not our intent to exclude you, I recognize that was the impact.”
Blankson said the Black Media Speaks forum was one of several events planned for this year. “In addition to NNPA, there are other voices we must include in future conversations, especially those about media. I want to use this moment to strengthen our relationship.”
She offered to “work together to plan an NNPA /NAACP specific event in the coming weeks.”
Blankson did not explain how or why members of NNPA or other reporters for black newspapers were not invited to the “Black Media Speaks” panel. Neither did NAACP President Johnson respond to repeated requests for an interview.
During the panel, NAACP President Johnson also took the NAACP’s Crisis Magazine, a quarterly print publication, to task.
“It’s been in continuous publication,” he said. “But it’s not timely. And we have to recognize that until we can develop the publication to where people can consume it in this new media reality – that they see the value in it – I can’t fault others for not investing in Crisis when we have not kept up with the times. That’s the reality across the board when we’re talking about Black media.”
Johnson said the Crisis has survived mainly because it’s been underwritten. “Because if it had to stand up on its own, it would have been out of business 50 years ago. So, we have to figure out a new business model to keep it moving.”
Graves said his late father, Earl Graves Sr., would not understand the decision he has now made to move Black Enterprise almost completely online. But, he said, it has been done with great success and an astronomical increase in readership.
Other members of the Black Media Speaks panel were Jeff Johnson, formerly of BET and currently of the “Rickey Smiley Morning Show”; April Ryan, White House correspondent, American Urban Radio Network, and CNN political analyst; and Jemele Hill, writer for the Atlantic and host of her own podcast, “Jemele Hill Unbothered.”
Near the close of the discussion, Gordon told the panel that he had an idea that he would be floating with each of them soon and he hopes at least a couple of them would agree. He did not say publicly what the idea is.
Chavis, noting that is “a loyal and life-member of the NAACP,” expressed his conviction that the matter will be worked out.
“Both the NNPA and the NAACP need to be made stronger together by working together to help improve the overall quality of life of Black Americans and all others who cry out for freedom, justice and equality. Thus, the NNPA does not accept the eulogy, the final rites or the epitaphs that are now being untimely articulated by people who should know better.”
NOTE: The New Tri-State Defender is a member of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
Shelby County Health Department officials say Memorial Day weekend appears to have been “a success” from a health-safety standpoint, but they will know for sure in 10-14 days.
Health Department Director Alisa Haushalter said there were 4,531 reported COVID-19 cases in Shelby County as of 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, up from 4,404 on Monday, a rise of 127.
Ninety-four people have died from COVID-19 complications, she said, and 3,047 residents have recovered from the virus.
Statewide, there were 20,965 reported COVID-19 cases Tuesday up from 20,607 reported cases Monday, according to the state Health Department. The department reported 343 deaths statewide.
In the second week of Phase II of the Back to Business plan for Memphis and Shelby County, Haushalter told reporters at Tuesday’s COVID-19 Joint Task Force update that the number of positive cases increased by 100 new cases each day over the Memorial Day weekend.
“This daily increase could be a number of things,” Haushalter said. “There was Mother’s Day weekend and nursing home clusters have not been contained. We are looking more closely at possible causes.”
A cluster is two or more cases on the same site.
Shelby County Health Officer Bruce Randolph called the holiday weekend successful, for the most part.
“We hope this will bear out in 14 days,” said Randolph. “A Memorial Day Blast in Cordova was held. Lots of people gathered for baseball games. There were no calls from code enforcement about noncompliance to safety protocols.”
Randolph said he visited the Cordova game site and observed most people wearing cloth masks or face coverings and practicing social distancing.
He also visited Shelby Farms, where people “were being safe.” Randolph said a Kroger store he entered was encouraging, as “almost everyone” wore masks.
Haushalter said Phase III will be considered by June 8.
“Our behavior will drive the date,” Haushalter said. “Most transmissions take place in the home and in the workplace. People go to work and bring the virus home to everyone. Employees meet on break and take lunch in different areas of the workplace. Home and workplace are still the main sites of transmissions.”
Haushalter said clusters in nursing homes still are not contained, but it is also a nationwide problem. Twenty new cases were identified at Parkway Health and Rehabilitation Center in South Memphis, for example.
Haushalter said the increase in nursing homes is caused by the communal setting. Also, more targeted testing is being done in nursing homes.
Targeted testing still is being done on detainees at 201 Poplar Avenue, the county jail. Health officials are dealing with an outbreak among both staff and inmates.
The Back to Business Board is accepting proposals for large gatherings, such as graduations and weddings. A formal process has been devised so that protocols for safe assemblies can be drawn up for a healthy event, said Randolph.
Haushalter said those who traveled over the Memorial Day weekend, especially to areas that are considered hotspots, should not return to work or other public activities. Isolation should be done for the next 14 days, whether COVID-19 symptoms are present or not.
Health officials said the success over the next two weeks will depend on everyone remembering that the virus still is present. Safety protocols put in place continue to be essential — wearing face coverings at all times in public; frequent hand-washing for 20 seconds, and social distancing at least six feet.
Shelby County health officials are already looking to meet the challenge of a possible early fall outbreak of the virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is warning of a new wave of COVID-19, along with the anticipated flu season. The two outbreaks will be simultaneous, according to the WHO.
Haushalter said community partners are expecting to increase testing capacity and hospital capacity by that time. The former Commercial Appeal building at 495 Union Ave., which has been converted into a COVID-19 intensive care unit, will be up and running as a backup facility.
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — He was at a crossroads, his life stretching out before him, his troubles largely behind him. He had enrolled at South Georgia Technical College, preparing to become an electrician, just like his uncles. But first, he decided, he would take a break. College could wait until the fall.
To help keep his head clear, he ran, just about every day. Off he’d go, out of the doors of his mother’s house, down the long street toward Fancy Bluff Road. Then would come the right turn onto the two-lane road lined by oak trees draped with Spanish moss.
About a mile and a half into his usual route, Ahmaud Arbery would cross the four lanes of Jekyll Island Causeway into the subdivision of Satilla Shores.
Three months ago, at the age of 25, he ran through Satilla Shores for the final time.
On Feb. 23, Arbery was shot to death by a father and son who told police they grabbed guns and pursued him in a pickup truck because they believed he was responsible for break-ins in their neighborhood — a black man, killed by two white men.
A makeshift memorial of flowers now rests on the lawn of a house near where he died, along with a plaque reading, “It’s hard to forget someone who gave us so much to remember.”
Before Arbery’s name joined a litany of hashtags bearing young black men’s names, he was a skinny kid whose dreams of an NFL career didn’t pan out. Those who knew him speak of a seemingly bottomless reservoir of kindness he used to encourage others, of an easy smile and infectious laughter that could lighten just about any situation.
They also acknowledge the legal troubles that cropped up after high school — five years of probation for carrying a gun onto the high school campus in 2013, a year after graduation, and shoplifting from a Walmart store in 2017, a charge that extended that probation up until the time of his death.
In his final months on Earth, Arbery appeared to be someone who felt on the verge of personal and professional breakthroughs, especially because his probation could have ended this year, many of those close to him told The Associated Press.
His mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, accepted that he was a young adult living at home, like so many of his contemporaries, taking a breather to chart how he’d one day support himself.
She had one rule: “If you have the energy to run the roads, you need to be on the job.”
So he worked at his father’s car wash and landscaping business, and previously had held a job at McDonald’s.
Born May 8, 1994, Ahmaud Marquez Arbery was the youngest of three children, answering to the affectionate nicknames “Maud” and “Quez.”
As a teenager, he stuck to the family home so markedly that his family worried he never wanted to go out with friends. “And I was like, he’ll get to the stage eventually,” Cooper-Jones said. ’He was a mama’s boy at first.”
As his mother predicted, that reserve was left behind when Arbery entered Brunswick High School’s Class of 2012.
He took cues from his brother, Marcus Jr., and tried out for the Brunswick Pirates football team. His slender build certainly didn’t make him a shoo-in for linebacker on the junior varsity squad, said Jason Vaughn, his former coach and a U.S. history teacher at the school.
“As soon as practice started and Ahmaud started to really go, oh man, his speed was amazing,” Vaughn recalled with a laugh. “He was undersized, but his heart was huge.”
Off the field, Ahmaud had a talent for raising the spirits of the people around him — and a penchant for imitating his coach, Vaughn said.
“If I was standing in the hallway, kind of looking mean or having a bad day — maybe my lesson plan didn’t go right — Maud could kind of sense that about me,” Vaughn said. “He’d come stand beside me and be like, ‘I’m Coach Vaughn today. Y’all keep going to class. Hurry up, hurry up! Don’t be tardy! Don’t be late!’ That’s what I loved about him. He was always trying to make people smile.”
“Some students it’s hard to get mad at,” he said, “because you love them so much.”
At the end of his final football season, no college recruiters tried to woo No. 21. But Arbery’s high school football career still finished on a high note, his mother remembers.
In his final game, he intercepted a pass and ran the ball back to score a touchdown. A referee threw a flag on the play, but his mother insisted that his accomplishment still mattered: “I said, ‘Guess what, son? You did it!’ And he was very, very excited about it. That was a very good moment for us.”
Former teammate Demetrius Frazier grew up just down the street from the Arberys, and his friendship with Ahmaud dated back to their days in a local pee-wee football program.
Frazier treasures their quieter moments in high school — just two friends playing video games, shooting hoops, wolfing down peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, hot dogs and chips.
Those were the times his friend seemed happiest, Frazier said, before his legal troubles bogged him down.
Frazier went on to play wide receiver for Middle Tennessee State University’s football team and now holds down an office job and is raising a son in nearby Darien, Georgia.
Arbery’s own football aspirations had been dashed, but he still wanted so much for himself, Frazier said.
“Ahmaud was just ready to put himself in a position to be where he wanted to be in life,” he said. “That’s what they took from him.”
Less than two weeks before Arbery was killed, 34-year-old Travis McMichael had called 911 to report a possible trespasser inside a house under construction in the subdivision, describing him as “a black male, red shirt and white shorts” and saying he feared the person was armed.
The Arbery family’s attorneys have confirmed that Ahmaud was captured on security cameras entering that home on the day he was killed. The property owner said nothing appeared to have been stolen, however, and surveillance footage also shows other people coming in and out of the construction site on other days, some apparently to access a water source on the property.
Travis McMichael and his 64-year-old father Gregory McMichael — a former police officer and retired investigator for the Glynn County district attorney — were charged with murder and aggravated assault on May 7, a day before Arbery would have turned 26.
Their arrests were sought by state law enforcement authorities after cellphone video of the shooting taken by another man at the scene was released to a local radio station. Gregory McMichael told police that Arbery attacked his son and then was shot in a struggle over Travis’ shotgun.
On Thursday, state authorities arrested the man who filmed Arbery’s killing, William “Roddie” Bryan Jr., on charges of felony murder and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. His attorney has said Bryan bears no criminal responsibility for Arbery’s death.
For Arbery’s family, the pain of his loss is magnified by his final moments being captured on video.
“I didn’t want to watch it. I didn’t want my children to watch anything like that, to see their brother get killed,” said Ahmaud’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., who noted that at least one of Ahmaud’s siblings viewed the footage. “My daughter, she called me and broke down crying. They just turned my family upside down.”
Cooper-Jones has said she believes her son was simply out for a jog when he encountered the men who had profiled him as a burglar. Their rush to judgment speaks to a larger problem of bias against young black men and boys, she said.
“I think that when he went into the property, he probably was looking to see how they were going to run the wire … or how he would do the job if it was one of his assignments,” she said, referring to his plan to become an electrician.
Lee Merritt, one of the Arbery family’s civil rights attorneys, said the circumstances of Ahmaud’s life touch on something deeper about American society.
“Our ravenous criminal justice system tends to take young black men in their teenage years, introduces them to the system and never lets them out again,” he said. But when Ahmaud died, “he was at a point of transition.”
His death will not be in vain, his sister told a crowd of supporters during a rally calling for justice that was held at the historic Glynn County courthouse in Brunswick earlier this month. Many attendees had driven hours from Atlanta to be there.
“I like to believe that our lives are already planned out before we even take our first steps,” Jasmine Arbery said. “I hate to feel like he was sacrificed, but that’s how I feel.”
A caravan of predominantly black car and motorcycle club members retraced Ahmaud’s running route to Satilla Shores. People riding in freshly waxed and polished Corvettes and Dodges laid flowers at the shooting scene.
Gazing at the tributes later that night, Cooper-Jones said she does not doubt that she raised her son right. As a mom, she had been a stickler; she knows that.
This month, she celebrated her first Mother’s Day without her youngest child. Thinking about a greeting card he’d given her for the occasion two years ago made her smile.
“We don’t see eye to eye, but I love you,” she recalled Ahmaud writing. “That tells me, I had just got on his butt about something that he did.”
Ultimately, she said, nothing her son did in his short life justifies the way he died.
“I will get answers — that was my promise,” she said. “That’s the last thing that I told him, on the day of his funeral, that Mama will get to the bottom of it.”
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(Sarah Blake Morgan, in Brunswick, Georgia, Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia, and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed. Morrison is a member of The Associated Press’ Race and Ethnicity team. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aaronlmorrison.)
MLGW’s Power Supply Advisory Team to meet virtually
MLGW’s Power Supply Advisory Team (PSAT) will meet virtually on Friday, May 29, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The information needed to view the meeting will be posted to
mlgw.com/powersupplyinfo later this week. The public will be able to view the meeting live.
The IRP is a comprehensive, long-term plan designed to provide direction on how MLGW can meet the energy needs of its customers in the most cost-effective way over the next 20 years.
The PSAT includes 21 government, business and community leaders. The public will be able to view this meeting online.
For more information, visit mlgw.com/powersupplyinfo.
TENNESSEE BLACK CAUCUS To HOLD ROAD TO RECOVERY VIRTUAL TOWN HALL
The Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators will hold a virtual town hall meeting TONIGHT, May 26th, to discuss relief efforts for West Tennesseans.
Titled the Road to Recovery for the Most Vulnerable Populations, lawmakers and experts will present seminars focusing on Economics and Small Business, Elections and Universal Absentee Voting, Healthcare and Housing.
The Town Hall will be streamed on the Tennessee Black Caucus of State Legislators Facebook page beginning at 6:30pm.
A similar Town Hall for Middle and East Tennessee residents will be held Thursday evening.
Hollywood loves to make movies depicting “the black struggle.” But black audiences may be tired of the same stories of people who look like them trying to make it in America. While “All Day and a Night” won’t have box office receipts to offer an answer, the lukewarm reaction to its concept may suggest they are.
Many movies are a temporary escape from the real world issues. Three hours of giant monsters fighting each other in the Avengers franchise allows audiences to forget real life for a time. But fiction that depicts the viewer’s reality isn’t an escape.
“All Day and a Night,” the latest film from Netflix, tells the story of a young black man dealing with the reality of his circumstances.
Ashton Sanders plays the older Jahkor, called Jah, a young man who has just been convicted of double murder. Jalyn Hall plays a younger version of the character.
Jah is sentenced to life in prison where he begins to unravel his choices and reconciles with his father, J.D., played by Jeffrey Wright. J.D. is also a convict at the same county jail, to coming to terms with the fact that he may not be there for his child.
The movie uses an unusual storytelling technique, employing a series of flashbacks to move the story along and explain events that led to the moment Jah pulls the trigger on Malcolm, a rival drug kingpin. Growing up with a violent father and a hapless mother, Jah looked to the streets for answers on how to escape his reality only to take the exact same route as his father, a violent man who believed that brute strength in the neighborhood and beyond were the only answers to every problem—only much faster.
One flashback shows Jah decide not to play possum after being robbed, following his father chastising him for being weak. Jah’s situation is exacerbated by the fact that J.D. is addicted to drugs while his mother struggles to hold the family together.
But most black people did not have an upbringing that mirrors films such as “Menace II Society“ or “South Central.” As the film attempts to find a common ground with its audience, its storytelling destroys that bridge in the opening minutes.
Jah breaks into his victims’ home and murders a couple in front of of their teenage daughter. Typically in storytelling, a protagonist who commits a heinous act must have good justification for doing so. Otherwise, your audience sees the character as a villain and won’t connect with them. “All Day and a Night” suffers from this fatal flaw—Jah’s motivations never justifies the murders—and the film never recovers.
While anti-heroes typically do bad things for the right reasons, “Black Panther” cowriter Joe Robert Cole tells a story about American anti-villains, people who believe their cause is just while their methods remain inherently evil. The dream of escaping the hood is one that many in poorer neighborhoods have but few achieve by means that will not devastate those around them.
“All Day and a Night” displays great acting from up-and-comer Ashton Sanders as well as veteran Jeffrey Wright. Sanders, who has built a solid catalog of roles in the last few years is a strong standout. Sanders’ character is anything but redeemable, a story is sadly seen too many times in fiction and reality: A person who grew up with no moral compass and few options who ends up where society’s odds place him. A SoundCloud rapper with ties to the criminal underworld, his character looks for a way out for himself and his future son until he accepts that day will never come.
A brief appearance by Regina Taylor as Jah’s grandmother breathes life into the movie. She is the voice of reason while calling out Jah on the excesses that land him in trouble.
Jeffrey Wright’s performance as a drug addicted low-life and the father of the protagonist will have people talking the most. While it is hardly an Oscar-worthy performance, Wright displays a side to the actor we haven’t seen before in the persona of a hardcore California criminal. Similar to his son’s motivations, the character wants his son to live a better life than him. When the brutal realization hits him that all he provided was the path that led three generations, which includes him, his father and his son, to the same prison yard, the reality of failure stings and audiences are hit like a sack of bricks.
“All Day and a Night” is beautifully shot, with its cinematography making even the worst areas of Oakland look attractive. But its solid visual aesthetic and good acting can’t overcome its muddy narrative and poor storytelling choices.
See or Skip: “All Day and a Night” looks great for a Netflix film, but the two-hour runtime is too much for a film with no one to root for.
(Edited by Lenny Ruvaga and Allison Elyse Gualtieri.)
The testing positivity rate is the percentage of all tests conducted that are found to be positive. The chart below shows Shelby County’s testing positivity rates over time, as of May 22, 2020.
May 25, 2020 — It was Sunday, May 24, and a balmy 87 degrees on the grounds of the Durango Hills Golf Club in Las Vegas, Nevada. The city had an excessive heat warning in effect, however, this did not deter Granville Brown, as he aimed his shot at hole #10. The strike was perfect, hitting the ‘play it safe’ modified golf cup and bouncing about 2-feet away, to the left. “It’s a Covid-19 hole-in-one,” chuckled Granville on a telephone interview with this publication. He achieved it on a Par 3 at 157 yards. The retired former college professor used a ProV1 ball and a 6 iron Callaway Apex to get the job done.
Durango Hills is a Lee Schmidt/Brian Curley designed public 18-hole, par 58 golf course. The course offers undulating greens and scenic views of the Red Rock Mountains, measures 3,777 yards from the back tees, and consists of one par 4 on the front nine and three par 4’s on the back nine. During Covid-19, with social distancing in mind, the course has implemented safe-play rules which include a raised cup to prevent the ball from entering the hole. During play, if a golfer’s ball hits the raised cup, rebounds, and comes to rest within a few feet of the target, it is considered a made shot. “I was excited and so were my playing partners, David Washington and Byron Holmes,” said Granville. “It was a good day.”
Dr. Granville Brown and his wife, Ellen, relocated to Las Vegas several years ago from Grand Rapids, Mich. They both enjoy the game and spend much of their time involved in the sport and in just a few short weeks, Granville will be installed for his third term as President of the Western States Golf Association.
(THE ROOT) — If there’s one thing Jamaicans know how to do, it’s put on a show. And if anyone can put on a show it’s veteran dancehall artists Beenie Man and Bounty Killer, whose Verzuz battle on Instagram Live last night was reminiscent of a clash at a real life Jamaican concert. READ MORE
You meet the eyes of your grandchild, and you know you have a big job ahead of you. She expects you to love her as much as she loves you, and you do. He figures you’ll have fun together, and you will. They expect, quite frankly, to be spoiled a little, and that’ll happen, too. And with the new book “Grand” by Charles Johnson, a few lessons might be taught along the way…
Some years ago, when Charles Johnson helped design the elegant room that would be his home office, he had certain things in mind. Not one of them was that his grandson, Emery, would take the room as “his” office but that’s what happened, and that’s okay. The boy is an obvious delight.
Emery’s thoughts, his willingness to share his world, and his points of view make Johnson proud; their relationship is easy and solid. This gives Johnson a ease of comparison between Emory and his ancestors, and lesson-filled stories to tell: Emery loves books, though reading was denied to his forebears. At age eight, he doesn’t have to work like his great-granduncle did. He has nearly unlimited opportunities, unlike his great-grandfather.
And yet, as a Black man, Johnson knows that there are other lessons he needs to teach his grandson, lessons that go outside history and into the future.
Be yourself, he’ll tell Emery, and know that the world has never seen anyone exactly like you. Don’t chase perfection because nothing is ever perfect. Give dimension to your life by finding your purpose, take care of yourself, and care for others. Know that you’ll suffer, and that others will suffer, too. Look for beauty in life every day, even if it lies inside pain. Remember the “three gatekeepers” before you speak. Never be complacent with your skills, never stop learning, never stop being creative or curious.
And know that there are three kinds of love. If you’re lucky, you’ll experience each one.
When you found out that you were going to be a grandparent, do you remember how your mind raced with all the things you wanted to do with your grandbaby?
Add ten more to that list after you’ve read “Grand,” but take a deep breath first.
Author Charles Johnson writes with a quiet reserve here that borders on gravity in the lessons he has – and that you can offer – to a grandchild. That seriousness is often further weighed heavily with Buddhist teachings and philosophy that can turn downright sombre sometimes and the text, though certainly filled with love and wisdom that ultimately leads to joy, can feel as though it begs for a lighter hand. Beware, too, that these sentiments aren’t meant for sudden talks: they’re lessons that start early and continue for decades.
Even so, there are lessons here for elders as much as for their littles and despite its occasional excess depth, you should easily be able to proceed as you need. With the right mindset and “Grand,” you can expect good things.
(Terri Schlichenmeyer is the creative force behind The Bookworm Sez, LLC. Reach her at bookwormsez@yahoo.com; bookwormsez@gmail.com.)