by Tawanna Brown

Memphis is calling its people to fold the margins into the middle and make room for all so that

every gift is brought to bear and everyone born and breathing bears a gift to share in this

promise of possibility, this feast of nutrient-rich healing.

Let every voice be heard, every face seen, every presence valued and every heart offering

honored. This is not kumbaya, but a communal sumptuous banquet of epic proportions and all

are welcomed, wanted, needed and revered.

Calling community caretakers and waymakers - be assured. Memphis sees the backpacks you

stack to encourage school-bound children and the canned green beans and pinto beans you

pack with chocolate pudding and cheese mac so that home-bound elders have hot savory,

satisfying meals on Sunday and something sweet come Monday morning. There are the 150

blankets you box and the water bottles you gather on ice when Memphis heat hangs humid and

heart-attack heavy. Thank you for the leafy greens, sweet potatoes and pole beans because

the farmers are among you, too - those who plant in raised soil beds determined that decades

of toxic industrial waste (from companies long-since departed) will not deny God’s medicine.

Amen to convenors and connectors - be of strong courage. Memphis calls you to reach across

embittered boundaries of race, class, culture and age and to gather together with a purpose

those who fear one another most. Put him with old money next to her with none. Seat the

Pentecostal Motherboard senior across from the East High School junior (select the one who is

unapologetic about his preference for tats, locs and the loudest possible Hip-hop). Let their

hearts talk in the light until their souls become comfortable friends, even in the dark.

Yes-yes to the cultural translators and curators – stay true to the word and deed. You know the

people speak in many tongues (foreign and domestic) and it is easy to misread – her blues ain’t

like his soul and the jazz man plays a chord that nobody knows. Your multilingual toolkit

transmutes shared understanding so that even in disagreement, peace and purpose prevail,

pointing us towards collective priorities promising a transformative, hopeful goodness. Share the

message with everyone, including those outside of affiliations and those without grand

reputations - send the invitations to all - leave no one from this call - look long, hard, deep, and.

low. This is a feast rooted in radical hospitality and for the people to come, they must first know.

Cheers to liquid leaders – those who are flexible, inclusive and invitational, free of antiquity,

smooth flowing, focused not on cementing hierarchies, setting formalities or elevating egos but

on the flourishing of a place and a people. (Perhaps it’s not more structure we need but a center

from which all can act and be.) Let leadership not be bound by proximity, by capital (social or

financial), or by the long-standing strongholds of name, age, rank and time. Let leadership be

free and fluid, opportunities for any and all to step in, up and out of roles and positions based

mainly on evolving skills, interest, capacity and will. Let the old make a way of ease and wonder

(not haze and humiliation) for the young and let the young heed, give credence and sometimes

space to the old, knowing that a job well done is easier said than done and sometimes all we

can do is our best. Let everyone move at a pace of grace with full and replenishable cups so

that wellness, like leaders, abound and last.

Come on all you culture keeps and street sweepers – keep riding your bikes and your

skateboards, and turn overgrown, forgotten, blighted places into nourishing, functional and

beautiful spaces. From blight build grocery stores with fresh, clean organic aromas. Smell that

sweet corn and melon and meat, if it is your thing, let it be of the freshest and most humane

cut. Keep looking up and saying hello as you move through your neighborhood until no one is a

stranger and no one among us represents danger. Pick up bottles and tires and paper and

such and pass it to the woman who turns what was once trash into bottle trees and

playgrounds and sells them across town for a profit, a portion of which reverts back to those

who gathered and swept the streets clean. Entrepreneurs, build entryways of economic

ingenuity and renewal.

Raise homes that everyone can afford. This feast is a treasure and worthy of shared gold.

Memphis is calling the historians and librarians who offer a haven of knowledge and memories.

Memphis is calling the power brokers, policy shapers and meaning makers. Craft spaces in

which stories can be told then empower the people to analyze, interpret them and help them

unfold in ways that lawmakers hold honorability can anchor change in investments guided by

the people and grounded in place. Where are our representatives? Stand front and center and

talk with the people and keep translators at your side.

Memphis is calling porch poets and painters who open their yards and kitchens as sacred

space from which to serve plates of redemption, where no one is regarded as disposable and

everyone is a vessel of hope. Memphis is calling for resources to reach the roots - those who

are channeling change, with or without nonprofits, platforms, titles and tip jars. Invest in them,

incentivize them and recognize them for the work they do. Celebrate them and elevate them so

that we all reach a higher ground. Let the community be centered so that centers belong to the

community and parking lots have no priority over the people who call this community home.

Memphis is calling and the underground swell will not be contained. There is a movement afoot

– a quiet, competent surge of mighty power, connecting Orange Mound, North Hollywood,

Greenlaw, South Memphis, North Memphis, Prospect Park, Frayser, Klondike, Douglass,

Binghamton and others. Be still, for just a moment, and surely you feel the current too

contemptuous to capture and too component for complacency. It is more powerful than a FedEx

Boeing plane and more resilient than a BNSF train. This is a Memphis freedom feast destined to

move its people and their home to a healing, hopeful, hearth. This is a Memphis love call.

A Memphis Love Call, by T.R.Brown, inspired by the ThirdSpace/CTC “Memphis Love Project” Page 2