By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — In 2017, Sable Otey pushed very hard to make it to the 2018 XXIII Olympics Winter Games in PyeongChang, Korea. She pushed and pushed, but couldn’t summon enough strength or push fast enough to rocket the bobsled out of the gate during tryouts in Calgary, Canada. “I crashed several times. At the beginning, I just got out-pushed,” she said. Two U.S. teams made it to Korea. Otey and her pilot failed to qualify. Still, she went on to witness the dazzling display of Olympic glory in Korea. While the memories are still fresh in…
Author: Wiley Henry
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — Home is where Eugene Phillips’ heart is and where he feels most comfortable. His heart is also with the children at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital who grapple with catastrophic diseases. On Sunday evening (Feb. 10), Phillips opened the door of his lavishly decorated home in Germantown to a cadre of special friends who celebrated his birthday over dinner and made a donation to St. Jude. Phillips, whose birthday was Feb. 12, has raised more than $100,000 for St. Jude over the course of 35 years – thanks to an eclectic mix of friends:…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — Nearly 60 years ago, eight black students – known as the Memphis State Eight – integrated the former Memphis State University. Before the name was changed to the University of Memphis in 1994, J. Millard (Jack) Smith, who was president from 1946 to 1960, reportedly said, “No blacks shall be admitted as long as I’m president.” Dr. Shirley Raines, the affable president of the U of M from 2001 to 2013, had no problem acknowledging the history-making trailblazers who shattered the color barrier in 1959: Luther McClellan, Marvis Kneeland Jones, Ralph Prater, John Simpson,…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — After Margaret Matthews-Wilburn won the bronze medal in the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, for the 4×100-meter relay, she was swept up in euphoria. That glorious moment in Melbourne would turn to sadness decades later when Matthews- Wilburn discovered her bronze medal missing after speaking to students and showing them her prized medal during a school assembly. “I didn’t know for several weeks that it was missing,” she said. The bronze medal had vanished. But Matthews-Wilburn’s stupendous achievement and coveted bronze medal would not be lost to the ages, thanks to her goddaughter,…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN – “America has had a fixation on dope for a long time,” said Thurston S. Smith, laying out the facts to a group of community stakeholders attending a forum on opioid addiction Nov. 7 at Bartlett United Methodist Church. A behavioral health consultant and trainer, and member of the Shelby County Opioid Response Task Force, Smith shed light on the origin of drug abuse and its societal impact in America, past and present. The task force is comprised of experts and officials in Memphis and Shelby County charged with developing a plan to bring an…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — Those who knew Elbert Howard from the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, or befriended him when he lived briefly in Memphis, referred to him as “Big Man” – not so much because of his six-foot, 250-pound frame, but largely because he stood tall on principle and commanded attention when he spoke out vehemently against injustices. “He wasn’t just a large and imposing figure, it was the heart that he had for service,” said the Rev. Willie L. Henry Jr., a former member of both the Black Panther Party and The Invaders, a local Black…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN – If you are having stroke symptoms, you should rush to the hospital as soon as possible. Every minute that you delay will cause the death of 1.9 million brain cells, a leading international nursing expert in acute stroke management warns. “People should not wait when having stroke symptoms,” said Dr. Anne Alexandrov, a professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Nursing and chief nurse practitioner of the UT Mobile Stroke Unit. On June 26, Dr. Alexandrov and a team of clinical experts and administrators touted the virtues of the UT…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN – Friends, relatives and business leaders gathered June 20 underneath a tent on the parking lot of the Tri-State Bank of Memphis in the Whitehaven community to pay tribute to the bank’s president for his decades of service. There was an intermittent drizzle and then a quick shower of rain at the most inopportune moment. But the inclement weather on that evening didn’t stop the retirement celebration for Jesse H. Turner Jr. “This is about legacy,” Dr. Lucy Shaw Henderson, the bank’s board chair, explained to the 100-plus attendees. “We are what’s called a legacy…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — Ivi Wicks was 11 years old when she first learned that African Americans began celebrating Juneteenth two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, a historic document abolishing slavery throughout the Confederate South. Maggie Townes was seven when she was first introduced to Juneteenth. Now she’s 10 and still kicking up her heels, so to speak, as one of Juneteenth’s dainty little models that will perform on one of several stages. “I enjoy Juneteenth,” said Maggie, passing to the fifth grade next year at Sea Isle Elementary. “I was a princess one year,…
By Wiley Henry MEMPHIS, TN — Can anything good come out of Binghampton, a community marred by blight, crime and poverty? Xavier Delanne Winston, the 31-year-old founder of Kencade Apparel, thinks so. With roots deeply planted in the community, he is not bothered about the perception that skeptics may have about Binghampton – except when he tried to invite a female acquaintance to his home a few years ago and she declined. “I told her where I stayed and she said, ‘I’m not coming to Binghampton,’” he recalls, adding, “Binghampton was notorious for the bad stuff. [Now] I’m trying to…