THE 9:01

The 901: Memphis, Shelby County brace for aftermath of election

The 901 is your morning blend of Memphis news and commentary

Ryan Poe
Memphis Commercial Appeal
Election worker Kieran Bowien (right, foreground) waits during a slow moment during voting on August 6, 2020 at the Shelby County Board of Education. Bowien is 18 years old and said this is the first time he's worked in an election. His title is machine operator. He said the election commission provided the protective equipment, including the gown, gloves and face shield.

Good Wednesday morning from Memphis, which is playing host to U.S. Attorney General William Barr this afternoon. Also, to tack on a quick housekeeping note, The 901 will be on hiatus the rest of this week, returning Monday. But first...

A week into early voting, voters in Shelby County are excitedly shattering turnout records ahead of the Nov. 3 showdown to decide who gets to lead the nation. But at the same time, local elected and unelected officials across the country — including in Greater Memphis — are bracing for potential civil unrest in the election aftermath.

Yesterday, a lineup of officials that included Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland and County Mayor Lee Harris took the unusual step of reassuring voters that their votes would be counted and that their governments were ready for any unrest, our Sam Hardiman and Daniel Connolly report. The mayors said local agencies — including the Shelby County Election Commission and law enforcement agencies — recently participated in a "table-top exercise" with the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency to plan the local response to a variety of scenarios around the election, including the possibility of unrest.

The press conference comes amidst national worries over whether President Donald Trump's reelection — or his unwillingness to accept defeat — could trigger costly riots.

Shelby County Sheriff deputies fire tear gas over their line and into the crowd of protesters amidst a confrontation during a protest against police brutality and the death of George Floyd downtown Memphis, Tenn., on Sunday, May 31, 2020.

With the president being mealy-mouthed about a peaceful transition, and after Russian interference in the 2016 election, citizens are understandably worried about the integrity of the election. But locally, there have been nearly no issues so far, apart from a shouting match between two campaign workers and a case where a poll worker at Memphis' Dave Wells Community Center was fired for turning away voters wearing "Black Lives Matter" t-shirts and masks. Strickland's response to the worries was to the point: "The integrity of your vote will be maintained," he said, as reported by Sam.

That local officials are doing their jobs is, I suppose, reassuring in its own way. But, ironically, that officials felt the need for this media briefing is itself less than reassuring. By entertaining these mostly speculative fears publicly, might local officials give a power to the concerns that they didn't have and don't deserve? (And, turning the tables, is this column doing the same?) I don't know, and so I'm erring on the side of trusting people to stay calm in the face of all of this withering uncertainty.

But here's the good-news takeaway: Whatever happens Nov. 3, local leaders are committed to keeping the peace and upholding democracy. And that's reassuring.

Barr visits Memphis to talk LeGend

Attorney General William Barr was at the Clifford Davis-Odell Horton Federal Building in Memphis Nov. 13, 2019 to announce the launch of Project Guardian, a nationwide effort to reduce gun violence.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr is in Memphis today to talk about Operation LeGend, a controversial Department of Justice initiative that aims to reduce violent crime in a number of cities through a surge of federal agents, our Daniel Connolly reports.

Barr is scheduled to give remarks at the Memphis Police Department's Ridgeway Station this afternoon, per Daniel.

The operation, which began in July and was named after 4-year-old Missouri shooting victim LeGend Taliferro, had resulted in 302 arrests as of the last update in September.

+ Speaking of federal charges: Three people are facing them in Memphis for allegedly trying to defraud the government of COVID-19 relief funds, our Micaela Watts reports.

Memphis featured in state masking ad

Even as Gov. Bill Lee resists calls for a statewide mask mandate amidst a rising COVID-19 case count, the state is rolling out an new marketing campaign that simultaneously encourages Tennesseans to get out and to mask up when they do.

The opening scene of the campaign's new 30-second PSA will be familiar to most Memphians: That's the Orpheum Theatre on South Main Street in Downtown Memphis.

But even as the state encourages people to "Choose to live responsibly," the Shelby County Health Department yesterday said that getting out and about — to work, most prominently — could be fueling a COVID resurgence, our Daniel Connolly reports:

“Some of the things that we are seeing is that in recent cases, where we’ve interviewed (people with COVID-19), we have people reporting going out to eat in restaurants, people having social gatherings in their homes, attending parties," David Sweat, chief of epidemiology with the Shelby County Health Department, said in a video news conference.

"We also have people talking about employment, and employment-related clusters. But it’s a wide variety of potential risky settings for transmission. It’s not one single thing." 

Sweat said 46% of 267 COVID-19 patients interviewed by the health department since mid-September had reported working in the 14 weeks before they tested positive, with 4% saying they worked at a restaurant or bar. Another 8% of patients visited a restaurant or bar in that time, although they didn't necessarily contract the virus there.

Also, here are the current COVID-19 hot spots in Shelby County, per Sweat:

"Right now, locally our highest rates per 100,000 population are occurring in Arlington, Millington, East Memphis, the Hickory Hill area, Collierville and Bartlett."

+ Speaking of corona: Two nursing homes in Shelby County have been fined for failing to report COVID-19 data, per our Katherine Burgess.

What else is happening in the 901

The Fadeout: Phineas Newborn Jr.

Phineas Newborn Jr. isn't as famous as some other Jazz legends, but he's considered one of the greatest of jazz pianists of all time by people in the know. And he's one of the many colorful characters featured in Robert Gordon's celebrated history of underground music in Memphis, "It Came From Memphis," which is being retooled and republished for its 25th anniversary, as our Bob Mehr reported last week. 

Fading us out this morning, here's a video of Newborn burning up the keys while playing the jazz standard "Oleo" in 1960...

Like The Fadeout? Check out The 901's Spotify playlist. Want to submit a recommendation of your own? Reach me by email, address below.

Columnist Ryan Poe writes The 901, a running commentary on all things Memphis. Reach him at poe@commercialappeal.com and on Twitter @ryanpoe.

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