Religious leaders ask Mayor Strickland: Where is the change you promised?

A succession of religious leaders stood outside Clayborn Temple on Good Friday and delivered Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland something that amounted to part plea and part prod. 

The leaders critiqued the lack of public input in selecting the new Memphis Police Department director, the mayor’s delay in releasing the results of his Reimagining Policing Initiative and what they described as the Strickland administration's infrequent communication with the Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, the group of faith leaders who held the vigil Friday. They also prayed for Strickland, the Memphis City Council and the new police director, whoever that may be. 

"As the city of Memphis is about to select a new police director, we are left wondering if we will see the promised change. We wonder which voices were considered in the selection process. How can true justice and equity for all of the residents be obtained, if not all of the residents have been heard?," Janiece Lee, the vice president of MICAH, said. 

Ernie Hilliard of MICAH raised further issues with the process.

"Should you be concerned that you are not getting the opportunity to hear from director candidates before the [Memphis City Council] votes on the mayor's appointee?" Hilliard asked rhetorically. "Do you know what the new director's thoughts are about community policing and public safety? What do you do know?" 

The faith leaders' presence at I am a Man Plaza Friday came 10 months after Strickland stood in the same spot following weeks of protests over systemic racism and police brutality.  Lee read something the mayor said about policing aloud Friday, an effort to remind the public of what the mayor had said a year earlier. 

“As mayor, I am absolutely committed to fixing that problem of how the police deal with black people," Strickland said during a news conference outside I am a Man plaza on June 3, 2020. "For 400 years, we've sinned. Now, we need to fix it..... I don't have all the answers. And, frankly, as a white man, I don't know if I have all the questions." 

The mayor would then commit to a process called 'Reimagining Policing,' which has resulted in a police accountability dashboard on the city's website and a report about policing compiled from the observations of focus groups and hundreds of Memphians.

The city has also banned no-knock warrants and, after reporting from the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis, decided to refer police brutality cases directly to Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich for review. 

The lack of public announcements and discussion from the Strickland administration about the ReImagining Policing report has drawn MICAH's ire. In interviews, members of MICAH have also been unimpressed with the accountability dashboard, but they did not mention that Friday. 

Vigil comes on eve of historic weekend

The prayer vigil also arrived at a unique confluence of the calendar and events. It took place in a space that evoked historical symbolism and spiritual significance. 

The faith leaders spoke to a crowd of about 100 at I am a Man Plaza, in the shadow of Clayborn Temple. The landmark is where striking sanitation workers, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would march on March 28, 1968.

That march would end in the police killing of Larry Payne, a 16-year-old Black boy whose funeral would be at Clayborn Temple. Before King could lead another march a week later, he was assassinated a few blocks away at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. The anniversary of his death is Sunday.

The vigil also fell on Good Friday, with the week of Passover approaching its end, and was just days ahead of Ramadan. All three faiths were represented at the vigil Friday. 

The event also came during the emotionally charged trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer accused of killing George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in Minneapolis. And it happened just days ahead of Strickland’s planned appointment of a new police director. 

City mum, for now, on new police director pick

The timeline of Strickland’s appointment to replace retiring MPD Director Mike Rallings is unclear. He and his administration had said he planned to make the appointment by the City Council's April 6 meeting. However, the agenda for that meeting does not include a police department director appointment, but that could change at any time. 

Rallings retires on April 14, which is a hard deadline because of his participation in a certain city pension plan. If he leaves before a new appointment is made, the job would fall, temporarily, to Deputy Director Mike Ryall, who is due to retire in June. 

The city released the names of seven finalists for police director on March 11 and, later, released the names of the community members who interviewed the seven finalists.

That list included several dozen people from across Memphis, but was heavy with administration officials and members of the law enforcement establishment, including Weirich and Memphis and Shelby County Crime Commission Executive Director Bill Gibbons. 

The city has said little about the new director search in recent days and did not return a request for comment about the prayer vigil or another request about the timeline for an appointment. 

The city of Memphis has also posted some of the findings from its Reimagining Policing process on the project's website, but the administration has yet to talk about next steps for that process or declare that the process is over. It has not responded to questions about the report from The Commercial Appeal. 

On Friday, at I am a Man Plaza, the assembled did not want to wait for Strickland any longer. They chanted "Hear our cry" several times. And they also called upon one another, and the public, to not be lost in the noise of current events but to remember what had occurred over the past year — a social awakening and a deadly pandemic. 

"It took a pandemic to hold the world still long enough to see what we've been crying about. From that time forth, there have been several other stories that have attempted to bury what happened last summer. But, I thank God for all of you, who would not allow this story, this narrative, these issues, this death, this injustice to be buried," Rev. Byron Moore of Saint Andrew A.M.E. Church, said. 

Samuel Hardiman covers Memphis city government and politics for The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached by email at samuel.hardiman@commercialappeal.com or followed on Twitter at @samhardiman.