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DR. WILLIE W. HERENTON: The Once and Future Mayor?

Dr. Willie W. Herenton, a five-term mayor of Memphis, on Wednesday said much has been made of his recent decision to run for mayor again in 2019, at age 77.

But Herenton, who was interviewed as part of the “Brian Clay Chronicles Lecture Series” podcast, said that in many ways he has a lot in common with the youth of today.

“I probably relate to them better than a lot of people my age,” he said. “I love their energy. I love their activism and I love their appetite for change.”

Herenton joined Brian Clay for an episode of “The Brian Clay Chronicles,” recorded at Crosstown Concourse.
(Photos: Tyrone P. Easley)

The interview took place inside the packed OAM Network studio at the Crosstown Concourse in Midtown. Herenton shocked much of Memphis when he announced his candidacy last week, a day after the city’s main festivities celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was assassinated as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.

King had come to Memphis to help striking sanitation workers get decent wages and working conditions. They were marching, carrying signs that read, “I Am A Man.”

Herenton, who was a school administrator at the time, said the momentum of the movement caused him to look in the mirror and question his own manhood.

“I had the privilege of marching with Dr. King twice,” Herenton said. “I stood in front of city hall wearing a sign saying, ‘I Am A Man.’

“I attribute Dr. King with motivating me to transition from a boy into a man,” he said. “They labeled me as a black militant.”

Herenton said that 50 years later, on the anniversary of King’s assassination, “I had to look in the mirror again.

“After all the celebration, all the heehaw, Dr. King left us with an unfinished agenda,” Herenton told Clay.

Herenton said he is committed to moving forward on that agenda and that he thinks the best way for him to do that is to, “go back to city hall.”

Asked what he would have done differently before he left office the last time, Herenton said he left office without coming up with a succession plan for other politicians to follow.

He said that would have kept the momentum going on the agenda he was pushing as mayor.

“I didn’t have the succession plan because I didn’t have the coalition of elected officials I needed,” he said.

Clay asked Herenton what he thought about the fact that over 80 percent of black children are not proficient in reading or math, according to some statistics.

Both agreed that those problems are partly rooted in poverty and that you can’t separate economics from education.

“We have become a very poor city and there is no separating economics and education,” Herenton said. “Forty percent of our children are born in poverty.”

The former mayor still inspires many Memphians. Dozens crammed themselves into the tiny studio, including this admirer who showed off an oversized but classic photo of Dr. Herenton. (Photo: Tyrone P. Easley)

The road to solving this and other problems in the black community will have to be a group effort and not one person with all of the answers, Herenton said.

“Many people believe the mayor is a savior,” Herenton said. “There is an unreasonable expectation on what a mayor can possibly do.

“I’m not going to say that if you elect Willie Herenton as mayor poverty and violence is going to go away.”

Herenton said these problems took generations to develop and will likely take generations to solve.

“There is what I call generational poverty, it is deep and no mayor in one or two or three terms is going to change it,” he said. “I can’t see anywhere in America where there is a serious poverty abatement strategy.”

Herenton said he is glad to see the school administration paying its employees a living wage because those employees safeguard our children.

But he said there are some serious changes that need to be made because “we’re packaging a school to prison pipeline.”

“We’re not addressing that,” he said. “What I bring to the table is some energy, some passion to make some needed changes.”

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