Institute for Public Service Reporting

07/18/2025

Healthcare providers across Tennessee are scrambling to find new funding for HIV prevention following the loss of a critical federal grant.

The loss of the $4 million grant is expected to hit hard in Memphis, where HIV infection rates are among the highest in the country.

Without additional sources of funding, experts warn, any recent gains in controlling the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases could be erased.

https://bit.ly/3Ui2w6f

DOGE-driven restructuring hits Memphis hard

06/27/2025

Cutbacks to federal programs that fight food insecurity are putting a pinch on pantries in Memphis and the Mid-South.

“We're doing the best we can to be here every day,” said Kiki Hall of Catholic Charities of West Tennessee. "Some folks use their last $3 to put gas in their tank to come and get food.”

As our Erika Konig reports, the poor and needy face new challenges following DOGE cuts to two U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.

https://bit.ly/44h6jW4

The poor and needy face new challenges as Catholic Charities and other nonprofits tighten their belts

06/20/2025

TOMORROW: A commemoration and education event honoring Phillip Hatley, who was killed by Memphis police officers in 1939. His family, many of whom still live in Memphis, recently became aware of the details of his death thanks to research by the Civil Rights & Restorative Justice Project. The Hatley family wants to also recognize the continuum of police brutality to present day by creating space for families to honor their loved ones with temporary monuments. Attendees will have the opportunity to learn how police brutality connects to systemic injustice in Memphis and beyond and ways to take action and be part of solutions. https://bit.ly/3HN4dWr

Come celebrate Juneteenth with us at Say Their Names Juneteenth Celebration! Let's remember those who suffered as we Say Their Names!

06/19/2025

Join us this Saturday, June 21 for an event hosted by the family at the center of Civil Wrongs season 6. The event is also in partnership with Say Their Names Monuments, which was founded in Atlanta by Ashley McKenzie Smith, whose son Jaylin McKenzie was shot and killed by Memphis police in 2022. We wrote about her monthslong quest for answers, even as officials quickly released body camera videos following Tyre Nichols' killing.

Come celebrate Juneteenth with us at Say Their Names Juneteenth Celebration! Let's remember those who suffered as we Say Their Names!

06/17/2025

Join us this Saturday, June 21 for an event hosted by the family at the center of Civil Wrongs season 6. Philip Hatley was shot in the back and killed by Memphis police in 1939 as he was fleeing. His grandsons only recently learned the full story and want to commemorate his memory while also telling bridging past and present by sharing the stories of other families who have lost loved ones to police brutality.

https://bit.ly/3HN4dWr

Come celebrate Juneteenth with us at Say Their Names Juneteenth Celebration! Let's remember those who suffered as we Say Their Names!

05/23/2025

In theory, the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration is rooted in suppressing a wave of violent crime committed by people who are residing in the U.S. without authorization.

But the rhetoric is different from reality. According to the 2024 Immigration Report — the first of its kind following the passage of a Tennessee law that requires law enforcement agencies to compile records of undocumented immigrants charged with crimes large and small — there were 59 alleged criminal acts in Shelby County perpetrated by undocumented migrants during the last three months of 2024. The number represents a small sliver of the cases circulating through Shelby County's criminal justice system. The overwhelming majority of arrests in Shelby County are of people born in the U.S.

Despite these numbers, the crackdown on migrants paired with inflammatory and misleading rhetoric, has injected fear and confusion in Memphis' immigrant communities, even among individuals already in process of obtaining citizenship.

As part of a deep dive into the issue, The Institute's Erica Konig spent time with one immigrant couple whose escape from extreme violence in Latin America led them to life in Shelby County. Their story, and their fears of deportation, are now emblematic of entire communities in Memphis.

They came to Tennessee fleeing violence in Latin America. Despite their quiet family life, Maria and Jose face possible deportation as the government wages war on an

05/22/2025

On this day in 1917, thousands of people gathered in Memphis to watch a man burn to death. His name was Ell Persons.

But like most racial terror lynchings of the time, his death was meant to send a message to the entire Black community that any progress toward equality would not be tolerated. The year before, thousands of Black men defied the social norms and mobilized to vote in an obvious threat to the status quo.

Listen to our podcast season on Ell Persons from 2022 and learn how injustices that contributed to his death persist today in false confessions.

https://www.psrmemphis.org/civil-wrongs-podcasts/the-lynching-of-ell-persons/

05/08/2025

On May 8, 1925, a Memphis riverworker named Tom Lee jumped in a small motorboat and made his way to the site of a capsized steamboat, the M.E. Norman, hemorrhaging passengers into the frigid, choppy waters of the Mississippi River.

As the sole witness to ship's distress, Lee would make five separate trips between the sinking vessel and the banks of the Mississippi, his small boat loaded with passengers he plucked out of the water. He then built a fire to warm the survivors as they waited for help to arrive. Lee saved 32 lives that night.

One hundred years later, Lee's descendants reflect on the story of both his bravery in May, 1925, and the ensuing decades where the celebration of Lee's actions were entangled with the realities of segregation and racial discrimination.

The Institute's Laura Kebede-Twumasi, in a special audio report made in partnership with WKNO-FM and the Civil Wrongs project, has the story.

https://www.psrmemphis.org/memphis-hero-the-man-who-saved-32-people-from-drowning/

04/15/2025

It goes by various names: Pretextual policing. Investigative stops. Proactive policing. Zero tolerance. Aggressive policing.

No matter what one calls it, it’s highly controversial. Studies show it’s also ineffective, racist and dangerous.

Learn more by clicking the link below.

Studies show traffic stops have little impact in stopping overall crime

04/10/2025

When Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed legislation last year that dismantled a local Memphis ordinance aimed at limiting pretextual stops, he described these types of traffic stops as “tools” available to law enforcement.

Proponents of pretextual policing, or the strategy of using minor infractions to stop motorists and then search for other crimes, will point to major nabs over history: Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, was arrested after being pulled over for driving without a license plate as was serial killer Joel Rifkin.

Learn more by clicking the link below:

Law enforcement needs a full set of

04/03/2025

David Waters explores the eclectic life, faith and art of Memphis essayist Martha Park and her new book, “World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After.”

“I wanted to examine my own relationship with faith,” said Park, a preacher's daughter who was raised in Memphis, left, and recently came back. "... But I need to be talking to other people to figure out what I’m actually thinking about stuff. I don’t feel like I’m a person with a lot of opinions or beliefs until I start talking to people and realize how I react.”

Read David's story below:

Every now and then when she was younger, Martha Park would find herself in one of her father’s sermons. “I’m using you in my sermon today,” the Rev. Don Park would tell her before the service. Martha would sit in a pew with her mother, “anxious to see how I’d show up, in what version [.....

04/01/2025

Are Memphis police overly aggressive when charging motorists caught with ma*****na in their vehicles?

Following a critical Justice Department report, an IPSR records review identified a series of cases that pose fresh questions about race and fairness during traffic stops in Memphis.

In those cases, officers charged motorists with felony intent to sell ma*****na, only to see those charges later dropped in court amid questions about sufficient evidence.

Read our story by clicking the link below:

Following a critical Justice Department report, an independent records review raises more questions about race and fairness in MPD's traffic stops