MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

White people were 6% of arrests by Memphis Safe Task Force in its first two months

Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations agents working with the Tennessee State Highway Patrol search a car during a traffic ...
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

Juvenile solitary confinement ordinance contradicts state law, advocates say

Friends and family of the youth incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center walk through its halls following a ...
MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

Health and Ed Board’s inspections miss the worst conditions at neglected apartments

Black mold grows on the ceiling of the bathroom at Pinebrook Pointe in July 2025. Photo by Kevin Wurm/MLK50/CatchLight Local/Report for America While city ...
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‘We deserve to breathe clean air’: Southwest Memphians take on Elon Musk’s xAI

Easter Knox (center) stands for a portrait at her home. Knox is a longtime Boxtown resident. Photos by Lucy Garrett for MLK50 Easter Knox’s brick home in Boxtown has a garden, space for her dog to run ...
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No school, no fresh air and isolated

David spent eight months incarcerated at the Youth Justice and Education Center. Center portrait by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report for America; Image of the Shelby County Youth and ...
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Inside the Memphis Chamber of Commerce’s push for Elon Musk’s xAI data center

Photo illustration by Shoshana Gordon/ProPublica. Source images: Andrea Morales/MLK50, screenshot by MLK50, U.S. Air Force photo by Trevor Cokley via Wikimedia Commons Marilyn Gooch was already ...
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FedEx says it’s a safe workplace. So why is Jessica James dead?

Jessica James had to get up and down that ramp. Her job at FedEx’s World Hub was to help ensure the trucks in her area were loaded and unloaded on time. That meant navigating forklifts on sloped ramps ...
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Bill Lee said people arrested by task force are “violent criminals and known gang members.” Data show that’s not true.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee speaks during a Tuesday morning press conference with Memphis Mayor Paul Young at the temporary command center for the Memphis Safe Task Force. Photo by Andrea Morales / MLK50 ...
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A day and night in Memphis: Trump’s task force expands surveillance

A child sitting in the backseat of a car pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol peeks through the window during a traffic stop at an Exxon located at Airways Boulevard and Winchester Road. Photo ...
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South Memphis residents frustrated even as company leaking toxins says it’s leaving

Vera Holmes (right) flips through a copy of the George Washington Carver High School class of 1982 yearbook with a classmate at the All Classes Annual Red & White Picnic at MLK Riverside Park in ...
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Loans got me into journalism. Student debt pushed me out.

A first-generation college graduate, Carrington J. Tatum, seen here visiting I AM A MAN Plaza in November 2021, made the difficult decision to walk away from journalism, in part, because of the burden ...
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Peppertree residents want to be safe. Why is that a nuisance?

When is reporting crime a public nuisance in Memphis? When you’re an African American with federally subsidized rent living in the Peppertree Apartments, a couple of miles from the gates of Graceland.