Memphis, Tennessee

== History ==
{{Main|History of Memphis, Tennessee}}
{{For timeline}}

=== Early history ===
Occupying a substantial bluff rising from the Mississippi River, the site of Memphis has been a natural location for human settlement by varying indigenous cultures over thousands of years.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/mississippian-period-overview |title=Mississippian Period: Overview |website= New Georgia Encyclopedia |access-date=July 13, 2017}}</ref> In the first millennium A.D. people of the [[Mississippian culture]] were prominent; the culture influenced a network of communities throughout the Mississippi River Valley and its tributaries. The hierarchical societies built complexes with large earthwork ceremonial and burial mounds as expressions of their sophisticated culture.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://historic-memphis.com/memphis/pickering/pickering.html |title=Historic Fort Pickering, Memphis |website=Historic-memphis.com |access-date=July 13, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131109154251/http://historic-memphis.com/memphis/pickering/pickering.html |archive-date=November 9, 2013 |url-status=dead}}</ref> The [[Chickasaw]] people, believed to be their descendants, later inhabited this site and a large territory in the Southeast.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5436 |title=Chickasaw |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Arkansas |date=October 16, 2012 |access-date=July 13, 2017}}</ref>

French explorers led by [[René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle]],<ref>{{cite journal |author=Magness, Perre |date=2011 |title=Fort Prudhomme and La Salle |journal=Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture (Online, February 16 Update) |location=Knoxville, TN |publisher=[[University of Tennessee Press]]; [[Tennessee Historical Society]] |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=495 |access-date=December 2, 2015}}</ref> and Spanish explorer [[Hernando de Soto]]<ref>WISSLER, Clark (1993) ''Los indios de Estados Unidos de América,'' Paidós Studio, nº 104 Barcelona</ref><ref>HALE, Duane K & GIBSON, Arrell M. (1989) ''The Chickasaw'', Frank W. Porter III, General Editor, Chelsea House, New York.</ref> encountered the historic Chickasaw in this area in the 16th century.

J. D. L. Holmes, writing in Hudson's ''Four Centuries of Southern Indians'' (2007), notes that this site was a third strategic point in the late 18th century through which European powers could control United States encroachment beyond the Appalachians and their interference with Indian matters—after [[History of Vicksburg, Mississippi|Fort Nogales]] (present-day [[Vicksburg, Mississippi|Vicksburg]]) and [[Fort Tombecbe|Fort Confederación]] (present-day [[Epes, Alabama]]): "Chickasaw Bluffs, located on the Mississippi River at the present-day location of Memphis. Spain and the United States vied for control of this site, which was a favorite of the Chickasaws."<ref name=Holmes2007>{{cite book |author=Holmes, Jack D.L. |editor=Hudson, Charles M. |chapter=Spanish Policy Toward the Southern Indians in the 1790s [chapter, pp. 65–82] |title=Four Centuries of Southern Indians |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UcY20I7XXMAC&pg=PA71 |access-date=December 2, 2015 |date=2007 |location=Athens, GA |publisher=[[University of Georgia Press]] |isbn=978-0-8203-3132-4 |page=given in superscript}}</ref>{{rp|71}}

In 1795 the Spanish Governor-General of [[Louisiana]], [[Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet]], sent his lieutenant governor, [[Manuel Gayoso de Lemos]], to negotiate and secure consent from the local Chickasaw so that a Spanish fort could be erected on the bluff; [[Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas]] was the result.<ref name=Holmes2007 />{{rp|71}}<ref>{{cite journal |author = Harkins, John E. |date = 2010 |title = Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas |journal = Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture (Online, January 1 Update) |location = Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |publisher = University of Tennessee Press, Tennessee Historical Society |url = http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=496s |access-date = December 2, 2015 |quote = Louisiana Governor-General Carondelet sent Lieutenant Governor Manuel Gayoso de Lemos to secure the Chickasaws' consent and then erect a fort on the bluff site. |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160303193914/http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=496s |archive-date = March 3, 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Holmes notes that consent was reached despite opposition from "disappointed Americans and a pro-American faction of the Chickasaws" when the "pro-Spanish faction signed the Chickasaw Bluffs Cession and Spain provided the Chickasaws with a trading post".<ref name=Holmes2007 />{{rp|71}}

Fort San Fernando de las Barrancas remained a focal point of Spanish activity until, as Holmes summarizes:
<blockquote>{{blockquote|[T]he Treaty of San Lorenzo or [[Pinckney's Treaty]] of 1795 [implemented in March 1797], [had as its result that] all of the careful, diplomatic work by Spanish officials in [[Louisiana territory|Louisiana]] and [[West Florida]], which has succeeded for a decade in controlling the Indians [e.g., the [[Choctaws]]], was undone. The United States gained the right to navigate the [[Mississippi River]] and won control over the [[Yazoo lands|Yazoo Strip]] north of the thirty-first parallel.<ref name=Holmes2007 />{{rp|75,71}}</blockquote>}}

The Spanish dismantled the fort, shipping its lumber and iron to their locations in Arkansas.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2916|title=European Exploration and Settlement, 1541 through 1802 – Encyclopedia of Arkansas|website=Encyclopediaofarkansas.net|access-date=September 10, 2016}}</ref>

In 1796, the site became the westernmost point of the newly admitted state of Tennessee, in what was then called the Southwest United States. The area was still largely occupied and controlled by the Chickasaw nation. Captain Isaac Guion led an American force down the Ohio River to claim the land, arriving on July 20, 1797. By this time, the Spanish had departed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://wknofm.org/post/fort-san-fernando-de-las-barrancas|title=Fort San Fernando De Las Barrancas|author=Steve Pike|work=wknofm.org|date=July 23, 2013|access-date=December 2, 2015}}</ref> The fort's ruins went unnoticed 20 years later when Memphis was laid out as a city after the United States government paid the Chickasaw for land.<ref name="Patrick1990">{{cite book|last=Patrick|first=James|title=Architecture in Tennessee, 1768–1897|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JOIMXAKnCfAC&pg=PA77|access-date=March 25, 2011|date=March 1990|publisher=Univ. of Tennessee Press |isbn = 978-0-87049-631-8 |page=77}}</ref>

=== 19th century ===
[[File:Memphis Tennessee 1850s.jpg|thumb|Memphis in the mid-1850s]]

At the beginning of the century, as recognized by the [[United States]] in [[Treaty of Hopewell|1786 Treaty of Hopewell]], the land still belonged to the [[Chickasaw|Chickasaw Nation]]. In the [[Treaty of Tuscaloosa]], signed in October 1818 and ratified by Congress on January 7, 1819, the Chickasaw ceded their territory in Western Tennessee to the [[United States]]. The city of Memphis was founded less than five months after the U.S. takeover of the territory, on May 22, 1819 (incorporated December 19, 1826), by [[John Overton (judge)|John Overton]], [[James Winchester (general)|James Winchester]] and [[Andrew Jackson]].<ref name="TNencyOverton">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=1029 |title=TN Encyclopedia: John Overton |access-date=October 24, 2008 |encyclopedia=The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture}}</ref><ref name="MemLib">{{cite web|url=http://www.memphislibrary.lib.tn.us/history/memphis2.htm |title=Memphis History and Facts |access-date=October 24, 2008 |publisher=Memphis Public Library |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927040837/http://www.memphislibrary.lib.tn.us/history/memphis2.htm |archive-date=September 27, 2007}}</ref> They named it after the [[Memphis, Egypt|ancient capital]] of [[Egypt]] on the [[Nile River]].<ref>{{cite book |last= Stewart |first= George R. |author-link= George R. Stewart |title= Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States. Oxford University Press 1970 |page= 289}}</ref>

From the city's foundation onwards, [[African Americans]] formed large proportion of Memphis' population. Prior to [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|the abolition]] of [[slavery in the United States]], most Black people in Memphis were enslaved, being used as [[Forced labour|forced labor]] by white enslavers along the river or on outlying [[Plantation complexes in the Southern United States|cotton plantations]] in the [[Mississippi Delta]]. The city's demographics changed dramatically in the 1850s and 1860s, due to waves of immigration and domestic migration. Due to increased immigration since the 1840s and the [[Great Famine (Ireland)|Great Famine]], [[Irish Americans]] made up 9.9% of the population in 1850, but 23.2% by 1860, when the total population was 22,623.<ref>Carriere, Marius. (2001), "An Irresponsible Press: Memphis Newspapers and the 1866 Riot", ''Tennessee Historical Quarterly'' 60(1):2</ref><ref>Bordelon, John. (2006), "Rebels to the Core‟: Memphians under William T. Sherman", ''Rhodes Journal of Regional Studies'' 3:7</ref><ref name="Walker">Walker, Barrington. (1998), "'This is the White Man's Day': The Irish, White Racial Identity, and the 1866 Memphis Riots", ''Left History'', 5(2), p. 36</ref>

[[File:Forrest Memphis Raid.jpg|thumb|Attack on [[Irving Block prison|Irving Block]] by General Forrest in 1864]]

[[Tennessee#History|Tennessee]] seceded from the [[United States|Union]] in June 1861, and Memphis briefly became a [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] stronghold. [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] [[Ironclad warship|ironclad gunboats]] captured it in the naval [[Battle of Memphis]] on June 6, 1862, and the city and state were occupied by the [[Union Army]] for the duration of the war. Union commanders allowed the city to maintain its civil government during most of this period but excluded [[Confederate States Army]] veterans from office. This shifted political dynamics in the city as the war went on.<ref name="carden">[http://mercatus.org/sites/default/files/publication/WP1040_An%20Unrighteous%20Piece%20of%20Business.pdf Art Carden and Christopher J. Coyne, "An Unrighteous Piece of Business: A New Institutional Analysis of the Memphis Riot of 1866"], Mercatus Center, George Mason University, July 2010, accessed February 1, 2014</ref>

The war years contributed to additional dramatic changes in the city population. The Union Army's presence attracted many [[Fugitive slaves in the United States|fugitive slaves]] who had escaped from surrounding rural plantations. So many sought protection behind Union lines that the Army set up [[Contraband (American Civil War)|contraband camps]] to accommodate them. Memphis's black population increased from 3,000 in 1860, when the total population was 22,623, to nearly 20,000 in 1865, with most settling south of the city limits.<ref name="Ryan">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2716953 Ryan, James G. (1977). "The Memphis Riots of 1866: Terror in a black community during Reconstruction"], ''The Journal of Negro History'' 62 (3): 243–257, at JSTOR.</ref>

=== Postwar years, Reconstruction and Democratic control ===
The rapid demographic changes added to the stress of war and occupation and uncertainty about who was in charge, increasing tensions between the city's ethnic Irish policemen and black Union soldiers after the war.<ref name="carden" /> In three days of rioting in early May 1866, the [[Memphis Riots of 1866|Memphis Riots]] erupted, in which white mobs made up of policemen, firemen, and other mostly ethnic [[Irish Americans]] attacked and killed 46 blacks, wounding 75 and injuring 100; raped several women; and destroyed nearly 100 houses while severely damaging churches and schools in South Memphis. Much of the black settlement was left in ruins. Two whites were killed in the riot.<ref name="Ryan" /> Many blacks permanently fled Memphis afterward, especially as the [[Freedmen's Bureau]] continued to have difficulty in protecting them. Their population fell to about 15,000 by 1870,<ref name="carden" /> 37.4% of the total population of 40,226.

[[File:Memphis airview 1870.jpg|thumb|Historic aerial view of Memphis, 1870]]

Historian Barrington Walker suggests that the Irish rioted against blacks because of their relatively recent arrival as immigrants and the uncertain nature of their own claim to "whiteness"; they were trying to distinguish themselves from blacks in the underclass. The main fighting participants were ethnic Irish, decommissioned black Union soldiers, and newly emancipated African-American [[freedmen]]. Walker suggests that most of the mob was not in direct economic conflict with the blacks, as by then the Irish had attained better jobs, but were establishing social and political dominance over the freedmen.<ref name="Walker" />

Unlike the disturbances in some other cities, ex-Confederate veterans were generally not part of the attacks against blacks in Memphis. As a result of the riots in Memphis, and a similar one in [[New Orleans, Louisiana]] in September, Congress passed the [[Reconstruction Act]] and the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]].<ref name="Ryan" />

=== Yellow fever epidemics ===
{{main article|Lower Mississippi Valley yellow fever epidemic of 1878}}
In the 1870s, a series of [[yellow fever]] [[epidemic]]s devastated Memphis, with the disease carried by river passengers traveling by ships along the waterways. During the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878, more than 5,000 people were listed in the official register of deaths between July 26 and November 27. The vast majority died of yellow fever, making the epidemic in the city of 40,000 one of the most traumatic and severe in urban U.S. history. Within four days of the Memphis Board of Health's declaration of a yellow fever outbreak, 20,000 residents fled the city. The ensuing panic left the poverty-stricken, the working classes, and the African-American community at the most risk from the epidemic. Those who remained relied on volunteers from religious and physician organizations to tend to the sick. By the end of the year, more than 5,000 were confirmed dead in Memphis. The New Orleans health board listed "not less than 4,600" dead. The Mississippi Valley recorded 120,000 cases of yellow fever, with 20,000 deaths. The $15 million in losses caused by the epidemic bankrupted Memphis, and as a result, its charter was revoked by the state legislature.

[[File:AmCyc Memphis (Tennessee).jpg|thumb|Woodcut representing the waterfront of Memphis, {{Circa|1879}}]]
By 1870, Memphis's population of 40,000 was almost double that of Nashville and Atlanta, and it was the second-largest city in the South after New Orleans.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006">Crosby, Molly Caldwell. ''The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History''. New York: [[Berkley Books]], 2006.</ref> Its population continued to grow after 1870, even when the [[Panic of 1873]] hit the US hard, particularly in the South. The Panic of 1873 resulted in expanding Memphis's underclasses amid the poverty and hardship it wrought, giving further credence to Memphis as a rough, shiftless city. Leading up to the outbreak in 1878, it had suffered two yellow fever epidemics, [[cholera]], and [[malaria]], giving it a reputation as sickly and filthy. It was unheard of for a city with a population as large as Memphis's not to have any waterworks; the city still relied for supplies entirely on collecting water from the river and rain cisterns, and had no way to remove sewage.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> The combination of a swelling population, especially of lower and working classes, and abysmal health and sanitary conditions made Memphis ripe for a serious epidemic.

Kate Bionda, an owner of an Italian "snack house", died of a fever on August 13, 1878.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> Hers was officially reported by the Board of Health, on August 14, as the first case of yellow fever in the city.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> A massive panic ensued. The same trains and steamboats that had brought thousands into Memphis, in five days carried away more than 25,000 refugees, more than half of the city's population.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> On August 23, the Board of Health finally declared a yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, and the city collapsed, hemorrhaging its population. In July of that year, the city had a population of 47,000; by September, 19,000 remained, and 17,000 of them had yellow fever.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> The only people left in the city were the lower classes, such as German and Irish immigrant workers and African Americans. None had the means to flee the city, as did the middle and upper-class whites of Memphis, and thus they were subjected to a city of death.

Immediately following the Board of Health's declaration, a Citizen's Relief Committee was formed by Charles G. Fisher. It organized the city into refugee camps. The committee's main priority was to separate the poor from the city and isolate them in refugee camps.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> The Howard Association, formed specifically for yellow fever epidemics in New Orleans and Memphis, organized nurses and doctors in Memphis and throughout the country.<ref name="Hicks, Mildred 1964">Hicks, Mildred. ''Yellow Fever and the Board of Health.'' Memphis, Tennessee: Memphis and Shelby County Health Department, 1964.</ref> They stayed at the [[Peabody Hotel]], the only hotel to keep its doors open during the epidemic. From there they were assigned to their respective districts. Physicians of the epidemic reported seeing as many as 100 to 150 patients daily.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" />

The Episcopal Community of St. Mary at St. Mary's Episcopal Cathedral<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.communityofstmarysouth.org/about | title=ABOUT }}</ref> played an important role during the epidemic in caring for the lower classes. Already supporting a girls' school and church orphanage, the Sisters of St. Mary also sought to provide care for the Canfield Asylum, a home for black children. Each day, they alternated caring for the orphans at St. Mary's, delivering children to the Canfield Asylum, and taking soup and medicine on house calls to patients.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> Between September 9 and October 4, Sister Constance and three other nuns fell victim to the epidemic and died. They later became known as the Martyrs of Memphis.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.episcopalchurch.org |title=Welcomes You |publisher=The Episcopal Church |access-date=July 13, 2017}}</ref>

At long last, on October 28, a killing frost struck. The city sent out word to Memphians scattered all over the country to come home. Though yellow fever cases were recorded in the pages of Elmwood Cemetery's burial record as late as February 29, 1874, the epidemic seemed quieted.<ref name="Crosby, Molly Caldwell 2006" /> The Board of Health declared the epidemic at an end after it had caused over 20,000 deaths and financial losses of nearly $200 million.<ref name="Ellis, John H 1992">Ellis, John H. ''Yellow Fever & Public Health in the New South''. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1992.</ref> On November 27, a general citizen's meeting was called at the Greenlaw Opera House to offer thanks to those who had stayed behind to serve, of whom many had died. Over the next year property tax revenues collapsed, and the city could not make payments on its municipal debts. As a result, Memphis temporarily lost its city charter and was reclassified by the state legislature as a Taxing District from 1878 to 1893.<ref name="Hicks, Mildred 1964" /> But a new era of sanitation was developed in the city, a new municipal government in 1879 helped form the first regional health organization, and during the 1880s Memphis led the nation in sanitary reform and improvements.<ref name="Ellis, John H 1992" />

Perhaps the most significant effect of yellow fever on Memphis was in demographic changes. Nearly all of Memphis's upper and middle classes vanished, depriving the city of its general leadership and class structure that dictated everyday life, similar to that in other large Southern cities, such as [[New Orleans]], [[Charleston, South Carolina]], and [[Atlanta, Georgia]]. In Memphis, the poorer whites and blacks fundamentally made up the city and played the greatest role in rebuilding it. The epidemic had resulted in Memphis being a less cosmopolitan place, with an economy that served the cotton trade and a population drawn increasingly from poor white and black Southerners.<ref>Keith, Jeanette. ''Fever Season: The Story of a Terrifying Epidemic and the People Who Saved a City''. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2012.</ref>

=== Late 19th century ===
The 1890 election was strongly contested, resulting in white opponents of the [[D. P. Hadden]] faction working to deprive them of votes by [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchising blacks]]. The state had enacted several laws, including the requirement of [[poll taxes]], that made it more difficult for them to register to vote and served to [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchise]] many blacks. Although political party factions in the future sometimes paid [[poll tax (United States)|poll taxes]] to enable blacks to vote, African Americans lost their last positions on the city council in this election and were forced out of the police force. (They did not recover the ability to exercise the franchise until after the passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.) Historian L. B. Wrenn suggests the heightened political hostility of the Democratic contest and related social tensions contributed to a white mob [[Peoples Grocery|lynching three black grocers in Memphis in 1892]].<ref name="wrenn">{{cite book |author = Wrenn, Lynette Boney |year = 1998 |page = given in superscript |title = Crisis and Commission Government in Memphis: Elite Rule in a Gilded Age City |location = Knoxville, Tennessee, USA |publisher = University of Tennessee Press |isbn = 978-0-87049-997-5 |url = https://archive.org/details/crisiscommission0000wren |url-access = registration |access-date = December 2, 2015}}</ref>{{rp|124,131}}

Journalist [[Ida B. Wells]] of Memphis investigated the lynchings, as one of the men killed was a friend of hers. She demonstrated that these and other lynchings were more often due to economic and social competition than any criminal offenses by black men. Her findings were considered so controversial and aroused so much anger that she was forced to move away from the city. But she continued to investigate and publish the abuses of [[Lynching in the United States|lynching]].<ref name="wrenn" />{{rp|131}}

Businessmen were eager to increase the city population after the losses of 1878–79, and supported the annexation of new areas; this measure was passed in 1890 before the census. The annexation measure was finally approved by the state legislature through a compromise achieved with real estate magnates, and the area annexed was slightly smaller than first proposed.<ref name="wrenn" />{{rp|126}}

In 1893 the city was rechartered with [[home rule]], which restored its ability to enact taxes. The state legislature established a cap rate.<ref>Adams, James Truslow and Ketz, Louise Bilebof. ''Dictionary of American History'', New York: Scribner, 1976, p. 302.</ref> Although the commission government was retained and enlarged to five commissioners, Democratic politicians regained control from the business elite. The commission form of government was believed effective in getting things done, but because all positions were elected [[at-large]], requiring them to gain majority votes, this practice reduced representation by candidates representing significant minority political interests.<ref name="wrenn" />{{rp|126f}}

=== 20th century ===
[[File:Union Avenue.jpg|thumb|right|Cotton merchants on Union Avenue (1937)]]
In terms of its economy, Memphis developed as the world's largest [[spot market|spot]] cotton market and the world's largest hardwood lumber market, both commodity products of the Mississippi Delta. Into the 1950s, it was also the world's largest [[mule]] market. These animals were still used extensively for agriculture.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cityofmemphis.org/framework.aspx?page=296 |title=City of Memphis Website – History of Memphis |publisher=Cityofmemphis.org |date=April 4, 1968 |access-date=July 2, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100615184656/http://cityofmemphis.org/framework.aspx?page=296 |archive-date=June 15, 2010}}</ref> Attracting workers from Southern rural areas as well as new European immigrants, from 1900 to 1950 the city increased nearly fourfold in population, from 102,350 to 396,000 residents.<ref name="lollar">{{cite news |last=Lollar |first=Michael |date=September 11, 2010 |title=Yellow fever left mark on Memphis; historians disagree on impact |url=http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/local-news/yellow-fever-left-mark-on-memphis |work=The Commercial Appeal |location=Memphis |access-date=February 23, 2015 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140721064117/http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/local-news/yellow-fever-left-mark-on-memphis |archivedate=July 21, 2014}}</ref>

Racist violence continued into the 20th century, with four lynchings between 1900 and the [[lynching of Thomas Williams]] in 1928.<ref>{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |title=A Study of Mob Action in the South |first=John R. |last=Steelman | author-link=John R. Steelman |institution=[[University of North Carolina]] |year=1928 |page=178|url=https://archive.org/stream/studyofmobaction00stee/studyofmobaction00stee_djvu.txt}}</ref>

A Tennessee Powder Company built an explosives powder plant to make TNT and gunpowder on a 6,000-acre site in [[Millington, Tennessee|Millington]] in 1940. The plant was built to make smokeless gunpowder for the [[British Armed Forces]] during [[World War II]]. In May 1941, [[DuPont (1802–2017)]] took over the plant, changed the name to the Chickasaw Ordnance Works, and produced powder for the [[United States Armed Forces]]. There were 8,000 employees. The plant was dismantled after the war in 1946.<ref>[https://memphismagazine.com/the-powder-plant/] The Powder Plant |  Memphis, The City Magazine | December 2013</ref><ref>[https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/chickasaw-ordnance-works/] Chickasaw Ordnance Works</ref>

From the 1910s to the 1950s, Memphis was a place of [[machine politics]] under the direction of [[E. H. Crump|E. H. "Boss" Crump]]. He gained a state law in 1911 to establish a small commission to manage the city. The city retained a form of commission government until 1967 and patronage flourished under Crump. Per the publisher's summary of L.B. Wrenn's study of the period, "This centralization of political power in a small commission aided the efficient transaction of municipal business, but the public policies that resulted from it tended to benefit upper-class Memphians while neglecting the less affluent residents and neighborhoods."<ref name="wrenn" />{{page needed|date=December 2015}}<ref>{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/crisiscommission0000wren |title=Crisis and Commission Government in Memphis |author=Lynette Boney Wrenn |isbn=978-0-87049-997-5 |access-date=November 15, 2016 |year=1998 |publisher=University of Tennessee Press |url-access=registration }}</ref> The city installed a revolutionary sewer system and upgraded sanitation and drainage to prevent another epidemic. Pure water from an artesian well was discovered in the 1880s, securing the city's water supply. The commissioners developed an extensive network of parks and public works as part of the national [[City Beautiful movement]], but did not encourage heavy industry, which might have provided substantial employment for the working-class population. The lack of representation in city government resulted in the poor and minorities being underrepresented. The majority controlled the election of all the [[at-large]] positions.<ref name="wrenn" />{{page needed|date=December 2015}}

Memphis did not become a [[home rule]] city until 1963, although the state legislature had amended the constitution in 1953 to provide home rule for cities and counties. Before that, the city had to get state bills approved in order to change its charter and other policies and programs. Since 1963, it can change the charter by popular approval of the electorate.<ref name="wrenn" />{{rp|194}}

During the 1960s, the city was at the center of the [[Civil Rights Movement]], as its large African-American population had been affected by state segregation practices and [[Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era|disenfranchisement]] in the early 20th century. African-American residents drew from the civil rights movement to improve their lives. In 1968, the [[Memphis sanitation strike]] began for [[living wage]]s and better working conditions; the workers were overwhelmingly African American. They marched to gain public awareness and support for their plight: the danger of their work, and the struggles to support families with their low pay. Their drive for better pay had been met with resistance by the city government.

[[Martin Luther King Jr.]] of the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]], known for his leadership in the non-violent movement, came to lend his support to the workers' cause. King stayed at the [[Lorraine Motel]] in the city, and [[assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.|was assassinated]] by [[James Earl Ray]] on April 4, 1968, the day after giving his ''[[I've Been to the Mountaintop]]'' speech at the [[Mason Temple]].

After learning of King's murder, many African Americans in the city rioted, looting and destroying businesses and other facilities, some by arson. The governor ordered Tennessee National Guardsmen into the city within hours, where small, roving bands of rioters continued to be active.<ref name="lentz">{{cite news |last=Lentz |first=Richard |date=April 6, 1968 |title=Dr. King Is Slain By Sniper: Looting, Arson Touched Off By Death |url=http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/1968/apr/06/dr-king-slain-sniper-looting-arson-touched-death/ |work=Memphis Commercial Appeal |location=Memphis |access-date=February 1, 2014 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20140202124825/http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/1968/apr/06/dr-king-slain-sniper-looting-arson-touched-death/ |archivedate=February 2, 2014}}</ref> Fearing the violence, more of the middle-class began to leave the city for the suburbs.

In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Memphis's population as 60.8% white and 38.9% black.<ref name="census1">{{cite web|title=Tennessee – Race and Hispanic Origin for Selected Cities and Other Places: Earliest Census to 1990 |publisher=U.S. Census Bureau |url=https://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.html |access-date=April 16, 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120812191959/http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/twps0076.html |archive-date=August 12, 2012}}</ref> Suburbanization was attracting wealthier residents to newer housing outside the city. After the riots and court-ordered busing in 1973 to achieve desegregation of public schools, "about 40,000 of the system's 71,000 white students abandon[ed] the system in four years."<ref name="dillon">{{cite news |last=Dillon |first=Sam |date=November 5, 2011 |title=Merger of Memphis and County School Districts Revives Race and Class Challenges |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/merger-of-memphis-and-county-school-districts-revives-challenges.html |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=February 21, 2015 |url-status=live |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111107052336/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/merger-of-memphis-and-county-school-districts-revives-challenges.html |archivedate=November 7, 2011}}</ref> Today, the city has a majority African-American population.

Memphis is well known for its cultural contributions to the identity of the [[Southern United States|American South]]. Many renowned musicians grew up in and around Memphis and moved to [[Chicago]] and other areas from the [[Mississippi Delta]], carrying their music with them to influence other cities and listeners over radio airwaves.<ref>Peter Guralnick. ''[[The New York Times]]'', August 11, 2007.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=June 2021}}

Former and current Memphis residents include musicians [[Elvis Presley]], [[Jerry Lee Lewis]], [[Muddy Waters]], [[Carl Perkins]], [[Johnny Cash]], [[Robert Johnson]], [[W. C. Handy]], [[Bobby Whitlock]], [[B.B. King]], [[Howlin' Wolf]], [[Isaac Hayes]], [[Booker T. Jones]], [[Eric Gales]], [[Al Green]], [[Alex Chilton]], [[Three 6 Mafia]], [[the Sylvers]], [[Jay Reatard]], [[Zach Myers]], and [[Aretha Franklin]].

On December 23, 1988, a [[tank truck|tanker truck]] hauling liquefied [[propane]] [[Memphis tanker truck disaster|crashed at the I-40/I-240 interchange in Midtown and exploded]], starting multiple vehicle and structural fires. Nine people were killed and ten were injured. It was one of Tennessee's deadliest motor vehicle accidents and eventually led to the reconstruction of the interchange where it occurred.<ref>{{cite news |date = December 25, 1988 |title = Death Toll at 9 in Memphis Tanker Explosion |url = https://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/25/us/death-toll-at-9-in-memphis-tanker-explosion.html |work = The New York Times |agency = Associated Press |access-date = January 12, 2021 }}</ref><ref>{{cite report |author = Michael S. Isner |author-link =  |date = February 6, 1990 |title = Fire Investigation Report: Propane Tank Truck Incident, Eight People Killed, Memphis, Tennessee, December 23, 1988 |url = https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Resources/Fire-Investigations/fimemphis.ashx |publisher = National Fire Protection Association |page =  |access-date = January 18, 2021 |url-status = dead |archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20210128223921/https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Resources/Fire-Investigations/fimemphis.ashx |archivedate = January 28, 2021}}</ref>

=== 21st century ===
[[File:Memphis Skyline at Night January 2015.jpg|thumb|The downtown skyline at night in 2015]]On June 2, 2021, the remains of Confederate General and [[Ku Klux Klan]] leader [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]] were removed from a Memphis park.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Jackson |first1=Amanda |last2=Sayers |first2=Devon M. |title=The remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife are being removed from a Memphis park |url=https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/01/us/nathan-bedford-forrest-body-bring-moved-trnd/index.html |access-date=June 3, 2021 |work=CNN |date=June 1, 2021}}</ref>

On January 7, 2023, after a routine traffic stop, five African American police officers brutally beat a 29-year-old African American man, [[Tyre Nichols]]. Nichols died from his injuries in the hospital three days later. Officer [[body cam]] footage and local surveillance cameras captured the altercations, which were described as "heinous" and showed "a total lack of regard for human life", according to Memphis police chief Cerelyn "CJ" Davis.<ref name="auto2">{{cite web | url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/tyre-nichols-investigation-tuesday/index.html | title=First police report in Tyre Nichols case does not match video of deadly beating | website=[[CNN]] | date=January 31, 2023 }}</ref> The officers were fired and charged with second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping, and other crimes. The relatively rapid dismissal and prosecution of the offending officers were favorably perceived by Nichols's family, and Davis called it a "blueprint" for future incidents of police brutality nationwide. The incident also resulted in the disbanding of the city's "SCORPION" unit, which had been mandated with directly combating the most violent crimes in the city. All the officers charged with involvement in Nichols's death were members of the unit.<ref name="auto2"/>