By Tony Jones
MEMPHIS, TN — Robust early voting totals suggest a nerve rattling conclusion to the 2023 Memphis Municipal Election that will be nearly as compelling as the 1991 contest that resulted in Dr. W. W. Herenton becoming the city’s first elected African American mayor.
Set for Thursday, October 5th, due to a packed field of 17 candidates, the former five term, the 83-year-old former chief executive is a surprisingly viable candidate to return to the office that he held for 19 years.
“We need 30,000 votes to win,” Herenton recently told supporters on Facebook, and according to several pundits he may not be far off target.
Aggregate poll review places Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, businessman J.W. Gibson, Herenton, NAACP President Van Turner and Downtown Commissioner Paul Young as the having the strongest support.
Unless a miracle occurs, the several qualified female candidates have disappointedly not gained traction, including the strongest among them House Speaker Karen Camper, former Shelby County Schools president Michelle McKissack and formidable grassroots advocate Dr. Carnita Atwater, who made state headlines as a moral voice in the 2022 gubernatorial campaign. Atwater had previously gained widespread respect for her powerfully stated opposition to Mayor Jim Strickland’s original Memphis 3.0 plan, causing a revision before its final release.
The contest has proven to be the perfect lightning rod for resetting the city’s municipal representation, including the gender gap. Many female candidates are viable incumbents and new contenders in city council races. All of the city council seats are at stake and early voting totals have been robust up to press time.
Begun Friday, Sept. 15th, early voting concludes Saturday, Sept. 30th. Headed into the final week, as of Monday, Sept. 25th, 18,461 voters have taken advantage of the opportunity, outstripping several of the city’s prior contests.
But the city’s crime rates are outstripping prior totals and that fact has come to define the race. The fear of living in Memphis grows more real every day. MPD’s Public Information Office reports that there have been 290 homicides as of Sept. 25th as compared to 213 at the same time last year.
The concern boiled over when Nashville District Attorney Glenn Funk reported the indictment of 9 Shelby County jail deputies in the beating death of 33 year old Gershun Freeman. A video was released depicting the beating after Freeman exited his cell naked and attacked the jailers.
Dueling press conferences followed. with Sheriff Bonner defending his employee’s actions and accusing Funk of making a political play to support Van Turner’s campaign as a favor to Turner supporter Shelby county DA Steve Mulroy.
Said Bonner, “Let me be clear. No action — no action — by any Shelby County Sheriff’s Office employee caused Mr. Freeman’s death,” Bonner said, adding later that he would be “the first one to donate” to any fundraiser to help with his deputies’ legal fees.
In a press conference responding to Bonner’s allegation, Mulroy stated, Mulroy also said he recused himself from the investigation “to keep politics out of the case. I’ve had no involvement at all in the case since last year, and played no role in the decision to indict,” and that he supported the video release “in the name of transparency.”
Now in voters’ hands, the only thing clear about the 2023 mayoral race is that the victor will be a black male and his number one task will be to address the thugs that are disrupting sane life in the city with seeming impunity while black men still die in protective custody. Many say Memphis needs a true civil rights era leader that must equally stern on the streets ever vigilant behind the scenes. The voters will decide who that may be.
