#NNPA BlackPress

Ambitious New Initiative Strives To Dismantle The Poverty Trap In Memphis

By David Waters Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, addressed in a launch of More for Memphis, an ambitious community development initiative to improve social and economic mobility in Memphis and Shelby County. (Photo courtesy of More for Memphis) For tens of thousands of children in Memphis, most of them children of color, poverty […]
The post Ambitious New Initiative Strives To Dismantle The Poverty Trap In Memphis appeared first on The Tennessee Tribune.
The post Ambitious New Initiative Strives To Dismantle The Poverty Trap In Memphis first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

3 years ago

May 16, 2023

Oakland Post

David Waters

Geoffrey Canada, president of the Harlem Children’s Zone, addressed in a launch of More for Memphis, an ambitious community development initiative to improve social and economic mobility in Memphis and Shelby County. (Photo courtesy of More for Memphis)

For tens of thousands of children in Memphis, most of them children of color, poverty is not a temporary living condition. It’s a trap constructed generations ago and maintained by adults, policies and systems that neglect, exclude and exploit.

A child who grows up in a low-income home in Memphis has about a 4 percent chance of becoming a high-income adult. That compares to a 6 percent chance for a child who grows up in a low-income home in Tennessee, and a 12 percent chance for a child in America.

The differences within Memphis are even more stark, according to a study by Tennessee’s Sycamore Institute.

A child who grows up in a low-income home in Midtown has a 16 percent of becoming a high-income adult. A child who grows up next door in North Memphis has a 1 percent chance. A child in Frayser has a 2 percent chance.

The list of reasons that poverty persists is as long, deep and convoluted as the Mississippi River in springtime.

“It’s complex,” said Mark Sturgis, executive director of Seeding Success, a local nonprofit that works to advance social and economic mobility in Memphis.
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t do something about it. We have to do more and do better.”

That’s the goal of More for Memphis, the most ambitious local community development initiative since the 1979 Memphis Jobs Conference, convened by then-Gov. Lamar Alexander.

For the past three years, Sturgis and dozens of other representatives of local government, business, nonprofits, philanthropy, education, neighborhoods, and faith and arts communities have been meeting to envision, design and launch a “multi-sector, cross-community collaboration” to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

In short, to dismantle the Memphis poverty trap.

They plan to present their initial recommendations to city and county public officials in May.

Mark Sturgis

The Memphis City Council, the Shelby County Commission, and the Memphis-Shelby County Schools board already have agreed to support the process, though there are no financial commitments yet. More for Memphis leaders are working to get similar commitments from this year’s mayoral candidates.

“If this works, it will be the most comprehensive and inclusive community development plan and have the largest social impact in the city’s history,” Sturgis said. “But there are a lot of challenges ahead.

he challenges are dauntMemphis, one of the nation’s poorest big cities, is overseen by four levels of government (city, county, state and federal) with everchanging leaders, and often com

The challenges are daunting.

Thirty years ago, about 1 in 5 Memphians lived below the poverty line. Now 1 in 4 do.

Poverty hasn’t deepened here, but it has spread.

There are about 80 Census tracts in Memphis that are experiencing high poverty — double the number 40 years ago, according to the Economic Innovation Group. Thirty-eight Census tracts have experienced persistent poverty since 1980.

More for Memphis leaders say loosening poverty’s local grip could be especially difficult here for several reasons.

Memphis is overseen by four levels of government (city, county, state and federal) with everchanging leaders, and often competing priorities and conflicting problems.

“Patchwork policymaking is the enemy of systemic change because everyone’s doing their own thing in their own corner,” said Haley Simmons, chief public policy officer for Seeding Success. “They’re not focusing on the connectedness of the world.”

Local policymakers face another challenge. Memphis (and Tennessee) have tax structures primarily built on property values and retail sales, which unevenly burden the working poor. Governments promote the city’s low-cost labor force and tax base, and often use tax incentives to reward companies that provide even more low-paying jobs.

“The whole system is designed to maintain the status quo,” said Cardell Orrin, executive director of Stand for Children and one of six “focus area” leaders of More for Memphis. “The status quo is so ingrained in our systems and mindsets that even our Black leaders are afraid to try something different. We’re a majority Black city that doesn’t value Black people.”

Cardell Orrin

Meanwhile, the city’s entrenched generational poverty creates and sustains living and working conditions that generate and exacerbate trauma, blight, violence and other factors that further impair social and economic mobility, despite countless efforts to address those problems.

Memphis has more nonprofit organizations per 10,000 population than any other major city, and 60 percent of them work with low-income people.

“We are program rich and systems poor,” Sturgis said. “We have a lot of programs to help the poor, but our systems are designed to keep people in poverty. We need to dismantle those systems and build a new civic structure that is better coordinated, more efficient and equitable, more connected to the people who are living in poverty.”

That new civic structure will be crucial to the long-term success of More for Memphis.

“We’re not developing and funding a new organization or a new program,” said Jamilica Burke, chief strategy and impact officer for Seeding Success. “We’re funding a new collaborative that we’re building from the ground up.”

The new structure, still in the works, would establish a long-term public-private governance/management structure similar to Shelby Farms Park Conservancy or First 8 Memphis.

First 8 is a nonprofit corporation that partners with more than three dozen local governments and nonprofits to support, coordinate, and administer funding for early childhood care and education programs.

Shelby Farms Park Conservancy is a nonprofit organization that manages and operates Shelby Farms Park and Shelby Farms Greenline through a private-public partnership with Shelby County Government.

“These types of constructs are typical in public infrastructure projects, but have not been deployed as much in this form in the social impact space,” Sturgis said.

More for Memphis will require ample and sustained funding from public and private sources, but More for Memphis is starting strong.

The initiative is backed by a $50 million conditional commitment from Blue Meridian Partners, a national nonprofit that plans to distribute $2.5 billion in unrestricted grants to “high-performance nonprofits” that are helping people escape poverty.

Natalie McKinney

More for Memphis leaders hope to use those funds to leverage another $50 million in local and state funds. The initiative also has received $500,000 from the Kresge Foundation and $1 million from Facebook.

“This will take time,” said Natalie McKinney, executive director of Whole Child Strategies and a member of the More for Memphis design team. “Generational poverty took generations to establish. There’s no quick fix. We don’t need reform. We need transformation.”

The More for Memphis process began in early 2021 with formation of a 33-member Design Committee representing various agencies, organizations and individuals from across the community.

The committee named the mission (More for Memphis) and wrote a mission statement: “To transform Memphis through dismantling unjust systems into an inclusive city with a deep sense of community, liberation, and access to wealth building systems.”

The committee established a 26-member governing body that includes six youth and six adult community members, and the leaders of six “Anchor Collaboratives”.

–Education & Youth led by Communities in Schools of Memphis.

–Health & Well-Being led by Common Table Health Alliance.

–Economic Development led by Collective Blueprint.

–Justice & safety led by Stand for Children.

–Community Development led by BLDG Memphis.

–Culture led by Memphis Music Initiative.

Each “Anchor” includes a number of partner organizations. For example, Health & Well-Being includes Legacy of Legends CDC, Shelby County Health Department, Church Health, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, Baptist Memorial Health Care, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and Youth Villages.

Members of each “anchor” workgroup have been hosting public meetings, gathering data, and examining research to develop “targeted investment strategies that become the backbone of the community-wide improvement plan.”

Those strategies will be incorporated into a comprehensive More for Memphis plan that will be presented to city and county officials in May.

“This is where the real opportunity is to bring our work together, leverage those private dollars to do the things we wish we could do together and do them well, to do them right, and to build a lasting system of impact,” Sturgis said.

That lasting impact will depend on how well More for Memphis addresses the fact that equality isn’t equity. That economic growth and development aren’t the same as economic justice. That poverty and disparity are directly connected to the racial income and wealth gap.

The design team calls it The Big Idea:

“To improve social and economic outcomes in Shelby County through a multi-sector, cross-community collaboration, with an explicit focus on racial equity.”

The median income for Black families in Memphis has remained about half that of white families for more than five decades, according to the Memphis Poverty Fact Sheet, compiled by the School of Social Work at the University of Memphis.

Black families in Memphis have, on average, 6 pennies for every $1 white families have.

The net worth of Black residents with college degrees is less than 20 percent that of white residents. It’s barely 6 percent for the average Black family.

Local minority-owned businesses still only account for less that one percent of business receipts citywide.

“The people and organizations in distressed neighborhoods don’t have the capital they need to build equity, to start their own businesses, to transform their own communities,” said Orrin. “We’re talking about the destructive impact of generations of disinvestment.”

The emphasis on racial equity and economic justice is what makes More for Memphis fundamentally different from the 1979 Memphis Jobs Conference and its successors.

As Tom Jones of Smart City Consulting pointed out in an analysis published by MLK50 in 2017, the Memphis Jobs Conference focused on expanding the number of low-paying jobs. It worked.

From 1990 to 2012, the number of low-wage jobs in the Memphis region increased by 40 percent. Meanwhile, middle-income jobs increased by 10 percent, and high-income jobs went up 19 percent.

Hundreds of Memphians have been meeting regularly for three years to envision, design and launch More for Memphis, a “multi-sector, cross-community collaboration” to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. (Photo courtesy of More for Memphis)

“The new economic agenda produced by the (Jobs Conference) reflected the influence of the powers-that-be that benefitted most from cheap labor,” Jones wrote. “Tourism, warehouses and distribution, and new agricultural methods were set as top priorities although university economists warned that low wages characterized all three sectors.”

The “low-wage” poverty trap isn’t just a Memphis problem, but it is a monumental problem in Memphis.

A larger share of workers in the United States (23 percent) make low wages — earning less than two-thirds of median wages — than in any other industrialized nation in the world.

By comparison, about 17 percent of workers in Britain make low wages, 11 percent in Japan, and 5 percent in Italy.

In Memphis, about 45 percent (212,000) of all workers make low wages (defined as less than $10 an hour).

“We’ve been selling this community as a low-wage, low-cost, low-taxes prize for employers and developers,” Orrin said. “All that has given us is a low-opportunity, high-poverty community. We’ve built poverty into our economic system.”

Low wages lead to substandard housing and high-interest debt.

Memphis has about 40,000 fewer affordable housing units than it needs, given its number of low-income residents, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Low-income renters generally spend more than 60 percent of their income on rent — double the national average.

That puts a severe strain on low-income household budgets, leading to another trap.

Memphis tops the list of U.S. cities with the worst payday lending problems, according to DebtHammer.

(Nashville and Chattanooga also make the Top Ten, thanks to state laws that allow predatory lenders to charge triple-digit interest rates on short-term loans. State laws also give predatory lenders repayment priority over mortgage, rental and utility companies and other debtors.)

There are more than 100 high-cost loan storefronts in the city, more than twice the number of Starbucks and McDonald’s combined, according to the Hope Policy Institute.

Payday, car title, and consumer installment loans are “charging up to 450 percent interest on loans that effectively ensnare the working poor into webs of long-term debt,” said Rev. J. Lawrence Turner, president of the Black Clergy Collaborative.

Payday lending practices was one of 54 “problem statement topics” considered at a recent More for Memphis gathering.

Others included: rental housing stability and eviction rates; vacant commercial corridors; disproportionate investment in incarceration and related systems; early education and literacy; impact of trauma on children, adolescents and adults.

The 54 “problems” covered economic and community development, banking and finance, housing, transportation, education, health care, public safety, and various other systems.

“All these systems are connected,” McKinney said. “All impact children, families and neighborhoods that are disproportionately affected by poverty. Applying short-term solutions to the enduring, generational nature of poverty simply doesn’t work.”

Jake Lankford, an intern for the Institute for Public Service Reporting and a graduate journalism student at the University of Memphis, contributed reporting to this story.

The post Ambitious New Initiative Strives To Dismantle The Poverty Trap In Memphis appeared first on The Tennessee Tribune.

The post Ambitious New Initiative Strives To Dismantle The Poverty Trap In Memphis first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

COMMENTARY: The National Protest Must Be Accompanied with Our Votes

Just as Trump is gathering election data like having the FBI take all the election data in Georgia from the 2020 election, so must we organize in preparation for the coming primary season to have the right people on ballots in each Republican district, so that we can regain control of the House of Representatives and by doing so, restore the separation of powers and balance that our democracy is being deprived of.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 10, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper. File photo..

By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper

As thousands of Americans march every week in cities across this great nation, it must be remembered that the protest without the vote is of no concern to Donald Trump and his administration.

In every city, there is a personal connection to the U.S. Congress. In too many cases, the member of Congress representing the people of that city and the congressional district in which it sits, is a Republican. It is the Republicans who are giving silent support to the destructive actions of those persons like the U.S. Attorney General, the Director of Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Director, who are carrying out the revenge campaign of the President rather than upholding the oath of office each of them took “to Defend The Constitution of the United States.”

In California, the primary comes in June 2026. The congressional races must be a priority just as much as the local election of people has been so important in keeping ICE from acquiring facilities to build more prisons around the country.

“We the People” are winning this battle, even though it might not look like it. Each of us must get involved now, right where we are.

In this Black History month, it is important to remember that all we have accomplished in this nation has been “in spite of” and not “because of.” Frederick Douglas said, “Power concedes nothing without a struggle.”

Today, the struggle is to maintain our very institutions and history. Our strength in this struggle rests in our “collectiveness.” Our newspapers and journalists are at the greatest risk. We must not personally add to the attack by ignoring those who have been our very foundation, our Black press.

Are you spending your dollars this Black History Month with those who salute and honor contributions by supporting those who tell our stories? Remember that silence is the same as consent and support for the opposition. Where do you stand and where will your dollars go?

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

Why Black Parents Should Consider Montessori

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — I have found that there are some educational approaches that consistently provide a safer, more enriching, and more affirmative environment for Black children. The Montessori method, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori and introduced to the U.S. in the early 20th century, is one such approach.

Published

2 weeks ago

February 9, 2026

Oakland Post

By Laura Turner-Essel, PhD

As a mother of four children, I’ve done A LOT of school shopping. I don’t mean the autumn ritual of purchasing school supplies. I mean shopping for schools – pouring over promotional materials, combing through websites, asking friends and community members for referrals to their favorite schools, attending open houses and orientations, comparing curriculums and educational philosophies, meeting teachers and principals, and students who all claim that their school is the best.

But keep in mind – I’m not just a mom of four children. I’m a mom of four Black children, and I’m also a psychologist who is very interested in protecting my little ones from the traumatic experience that school can too often become.

For Black children in the United States, school can sometimes feel more like a prison than an educational institution. Research shows that Black students experience school as more hostile and demoralizing than other students do, that they are disciplined more frequently and more harshly for typical childhood offenses (such as running in the halls or chewing gum in class), that they are often labeled as deviant or viewed as deficient more quickly than other children, that teachers have lower academic expectations of Black students (which, in turn, lowers those students’ expectations of themselves), and that Black parents feel less respected and less engaged by their children’s teachers and school administrators. Perhaps these are some of the underlying reasons that Black students tend to underperform in most schools across the country.

The truth is that schools are more than academic institutions. They are places where children go to gain a sense of who they are, how they relate to others, and where they fit into the world. The best schools are places that answer these questions positively – ‘you are a valuable human being, you are a person who will grow up to contribute great things to your community, and you belong here, with us, exploring the world and learning how to use your gifts.’ Unfortunately, Black children looking for answers to these universal questions of childhood will often hit a brick wall once they walk into the classroom. If the curriculum does not reflect their cultural experiences, the teachers don’t appear to value them, and they spend most of their time being shamed into compliance rather than guided towards their highest potential, well…what can we really expect? How are they supposed to master basic academic skills if their spirits have been crushed?

Here’s the good news. In my years of school shopping, and in the research of Black education specialists such as Jawanza Kunjufu and Amos Wilson, I have found that there are some educational approaches that consistently provide a safer, more enriching, and more affirmative environment for Black children. The Montessori method, developed by Italian physician Maria Montessori and introduced to the U.S. in the early 20th century, is one such approach.

The key feature of Montessori schooling is that children decide (for the most part) what they want to do each day. Led by their own interests and skill levels, children in a Montessori classroom move around freely and work independently or with others on tasks of their own

choosing. The classroom is intentionally stocked with materials tailored to the developmental needs of children, including the need to learn through different senses (sight, touch/texture, movement, etc.). The teacher in a Montessori classroom is less like a boss and more like a caring guide who works with each child individually, demonstrating various activities and then giving them space to try it on their own. The idea is that over time, students learn to master even the toughest tasks and concepts, and they feel an intense sense of pride and accomplishment because they did it by themselves, without pressure or pushing.

I think that this aspect of the Montessori method is good for all kids. Do you remember the feeling of having your creativity or motivation crushed by being told exactly what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and why? The truth is that when presented with a new challenge and then given space, children actually accomplish a lot! They are born with a natural desire to learn. It is that spirit of curiosity, sense of wonder, and excitement to explore that Montessori helps to keep alive in a child. But that’s not the only reason that I think Black parents need to consider Montessori.

Fostering a love of learning is great. But more importantly, I think that Montessori students excel at learning to love. It begins with Montessori’s acknowledgement that all children are precious because childhood is a precious time. In many school systems, Black children are treated like miniature adults (at best) or miniature criminals (at worst), and are subjected to stressful situations that no kids are equipped to handle – expectations to be still and silent for long periods, competitive and high-stakes testing, and punitive classroom discipline. It’s easy to get the sense that rather than being prepared for college or careers, our children are being prepared to fail. Couple this with the aforementioned bias against Black children that seems to run rampant within the U.S. school system, and you end up with children who feel burned out and bitter about school by the time they hit 3rd grade.

In my experience, Montessori does a better job of protecting the space that is childhood – and all the joy of discovery and learning that should come along with that. Without the requirement that students “sit down and shut up,” behavioral issues in Montessori classrooms tend to be non-existent (or at least, the Montessori method doesn’t harp on them; children are gently redirected rather than shamed in front of the class). Montessori students don’t learn for the sake of tests; they demonstrate what they’ve learned by sharing with their teacher or classmates how they solve real-world problems using the skills they’ve gained through reading, math, or science activities. And by allowing children a choice of what to focus on throughout the day, Montessori teachers demonstrate that they honor and trust children’s natural intelligence. The individualized, careful attention they provide indicates to children that they are each seen, heard, and valued for who they are, and who they might become. Now that’s love (and good education).

As a parent, I’ve come to realize that many schools offer high-quality academics. Montessori is no different. Students in Montessori schools gain exposure to advanced concepts and the materials to work with these concepts hands-on. Across the nation, Montessori schools emphasize early literacy development, an especially important indicator of life success for young Black boys and men. Montessori students are provided with the opportunity to be

successful every day, and the chance to develop a sense of competence and self-worth based on completing tasks at their own pace.

But I have also learned that the important questions to ask when school shopping are often not about academics at all. I now ask, ‘Will my children be treated kindly? Will they be listened to? Protected from bias and bullying? Will they feel safe? Will this precious time in their lives be honored as a space for growth, development, awe, and excitement? Will they get to see people like them included in the curriculum? Will they be seen as valuable even if they don’t always ‘measure up’ to other kids on a task? Will they get extra support if they need it? Will the school include me in major decisions? Will the school leaders help to make sure that my children reach their fullest potential? Will the teacher care about my children almost as much as I do?’

Consistently, it’s been the Montessori schools that have answered with a loud, resounding ‘Yes!’ That is why my children ended up in Montessori schools, and I couldn’t be happier with that decision. If you’re a parent like me, shopping for schools with the same questions in mind, I’d urge you to consider Montessori education as a viable option for your precious little ones. Today more than ever, getting it right for our children is priceless.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

#NNPA BlackPress

LIVE from the NMA Convention Raheem DeVaughn Says The Time Is Now: Let’s End HIV in Our Communities #2

Set against the backdrop of the NMA conference, Executive Officers from the National Medical Association, Grammy Award Winning Artist and Advocate Raheem DeVaughn, and Gilead Sciences experts, are holding today an important conversation on HIV prevention and health equity. Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event […]

Published

3 weeks ago

February 3, 2026

Oakland Post

Black women continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV despite advances in prevention options. Today’s event is designed to uplift voices, explore barriers to access, and increase awareness and key updates about PrEP, a proven prevention method that remains underutilized among Black women. This timely gathering will feature voices from across health, media, and advocacy as we break stigma and center equity in HIV prevention.

Additional stats and information to know:

● Black women continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV, with Black women representing more than 50% of new HIV diagnoses among women in the U.S. in 2022, despite comprising just 13% of women in the U.S.

● Women made up only 8% of PrEP users despite representing 19% of all new HIV diagnoses in 2022.

● Gilead Sciences is increasing awareness and addressing stigma by encouraging regular HIV testing and having judgment-free conversations with your healthcare provider about prevention options, including oral PrEP and long-acting injectable PrEP options.