David Waters

Memphis Commercial Appeal

The year opened with thousands of Memphis area women of all ages, colors and tax brackets marching through Downtown to express their concerns about the inauguration of a new government.

"This is what democracy looks like," they chanted as they walked more than a mile from the courthouse to the National Civil Rights Museum.

The year drew to a close with hundreds of Memphis area men and women of all ages, colors and tax brackets cheering the removal of two symbols of a shameful old government.

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"The people united will never be defeated," they chanted as cranes took down Confederate statues at two city parks.

In the months in between, thousands of Memphis area citizens planned and mobilized, cheered and jeered, marched and protested and otherwise exercised their constitutional rights to petition the government and redress their grievances.

In that ongoing democratic process, they shaped much of the discussion and drove many of the issues, institutions and news stories in Memphis in 2017.

That's why The Commercial Appeal's 2017 Person of the Year is the Memphis Citizen Activist.

These are regular citizens who banded together online and in person, at public meetings and private strategy sessions, with petitions and social media campaigns, quiet vigils and good old-fashioned protests.

They were underestimated and overlooked, scolded and intimidated, detained and arrested, but they would not be ignored and they were heard.

They made government officials, corporate officers and the news media pay attention.

"When people work together, things change," said Tami Sawyer, a leader of #takeemdown901.

Because of their citizen activism this year, statues have been taken down, public buildings saved, grassy fields protected, lynching sites and immigration raids exposed, pipelines and landfills challenged, laws and minds changed, economic inequality and criminal injustice confronted.

"Something is happening in Memphis," Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said at Mason Temple the night before he was assassinated here nearly 50 years ago. "Something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up."

In 2017, the rising masses were making something happen nearly every day in Memphis.

#takethemdown901, the Memphis Lynching Sites Project, Black Lives Matter and other groups worked to remove Confederate statues, mark lynching sites, and confront our racist past and present.

"We want a Memphis where the whole truth is told, where we acknowledge the shameful parts of our past, grow into new levels of healing and integrity and find ways to both work around and change laws that sustain racism," said Rev. Randall Mullins, a retired minister and a founder of the Memphis Lynching Sites Project.

Citizens Against Frayser Landfill Expansion, Protect the Aquifer, Stop the Diamond Oil Pipeline and other groups worked to address local environmental challenges threatening our natural and shared resources.

"We just decided to fight for our neighborhood," said Lisa Moore, president of Girls Inc. and one dozens of citizens who stopped the expansion of a construction landfill near a school in Frayser.

The Overton Park Alliance, Stop Hurting Overton Park, Friends of the Fairgrounds, the Coliseum Coalition and other groups worked to protect and preserve our shared public places and spaces.

"So many people got involved in so many ways, we couldn't be ignored," said Eric Gottlieb, a Rhodes College professor and a founder of Stop Hurting Overton Park.

Memphis Grassroots Organizations Coalition, Mid-South Peace and Justice Center, Memphis Coalition of Concerned Citizens, and Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope, and other groups addressed economic, educational and social challenges from outsourcing to deportation.

"We believe in the fundamental human dignity and affirmation of all of our brothers and sisters created in the image of God," said Rev. Earle Fisher, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church and leader of the Memphis Grassroots Organizations Coalition.

Fight for $15, Just City, Project MI (Mass Incarceraton) Memphis, Comunidades Unidas en Una Voz, Mothers Demand Action for Gun Sense, People for Enforcement of Rape Laws, Stop the Diamond Oil Pipeline, and other groups worked to confront specific problems from unjust bail laws to unexamined rape kits.

"I think part of what we are seeing has been a long time coming... people are angered that we have not made more progress in the last 50 years," said Demetria Frank, a University of Memphis law school professor and founder of Project MI.

"We are also seeing a number of young leaders step up, young people who don’t believe in keeping your head down and following the most socially acceptable means of getting things done. The law is only part of the answer to our problems and it doesn’t change itself. We are seeing what people power can do."