Archives for December 2018

We send you frequent updates on the progress of our Juvenile Justice Project’s efforts to better prepare young people across our community to protect their constitutional rights as they navigate and deescalate encounters with law enforcement, through our unique Know Your Rights Theatre workshops.

So, you may already know that we created these workshops to accompany our comprehensive Know Your Rights Guide that we published and began distributing in 2015, amidst Mid-South Peace & Justice Center’s campaign to strengthen Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) and a national climate of outrage over frequent officer involved deaths of people of color.

After a torrent of requests for our staff to come and talk with young people about their rights, we developed a curriculum that uses interactive theatre to draw upon and center the experiences of participants as a basis for learning. Over the past three years, we’ve facilitated these workshops with over 3000 young people at schools, churches, community centers, libraries, and youth conferences across the City of Memphis. Early on in the project, we began conducting surveys with participants following the workshops to gather feedback and input and gauge the workshops’ effectiveness.

We’ve been crunching those numbers, and they look good!

Out of 2,938 Total Survey Respondents:

• 98.5% or respondents said they had a better understanding of their rights
• 2,229 or 75.8% Identified as Black/African American
• 66 or 2.25% Identified as White/Caucasian
• 140 or 4.8% identified as Latino or Hispanic
• 105 or 3.7% Identified as Multiracial, Mixed, or Other
• 1,234 or 42% Identified as Male
• 1,333 or 45.4% identified as Female
• 86% Said they enjoyed the workshop

[Map shows locations of KYR Workshops Across Memphis]

Our staff believes that youth are the solution, not the problem, and when we dare to challenge popular misconceptions spread by fear mongering for news ratings, and instead validate and uplift the experiences and voices of our young people, they will be self empowered to lead the conversation on solutions to youth crime and contact with the criminal justice system. Part of that work is continuing to arm and prepare Memphis youth with the knowledge to more safely navigate police encounters while protecting their rights. We know it’s working, and we need your help to continue this effective mission. Make an end of year gift today or become a sustaining member of MSPJC.

For more information on the Juvenile Justice Project or to schedule a Know Your Rights Theatre workshop, contact MSPJC Organizing Director, Paul Garner, paul@midsouthpeace.org or (901) 725.4990.

Last year, Coach Clay, World History teacher at Kingsbury High School, reached out to MSPJC staff about working with his students throughout the 2018-19 school year. In June, we began conducting ongoing workshops with his fourth period Freshman class. Every Wednesday morning, members of our organizing and training department visit the class to facilitate exercises that explore topics like privilege and oppression, labor and liberation history, know your rights education, the roles of social change, and more—connecting these topics to the class’ world history curriculum.

Recently, we have also begun introducing the students to guest speakers comprised of local leaders, organizers, and activists to inform their understanding of current events and local issues. This month, we had our friend Sydney from Memphis Feminist Collective visit to discuss MFC’s work, in particular, their role in the Mariposa Collective, working to provide relief to undocumented immigrants being released en masse from detention centers with little to no food or clothing. Just this past week, we welcomed, District 7 County Commissioner, Tami Sawyer, who spoke on a number of topics including #TakeEmDown901’s successful efforts to remove Confederate statues from our public parks, police accountability, and what led her into activism, and ultimately electoral politics. Commissioner Sawyer encouraged youth to work toward improving their school and neighborhoods, and MSPJC intends to be there to provide whatever resources necessesary to support them.

When it comes to our work at MSPJC, one thing often leads to another. Our work around homelessness with H.O.P.E. (Homeless Organizing for Power & Equality), and our members’ experiences with police harassment led us to filing complaints with internal affairs and documenting that process (read our guide to filing a police complaint). This eventually led to our campaign to restore and strengthen Memphis’ Civilian Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB). During this three year campaign, calls began to pour in from people who felt that their rights had violated during an encounter with law enforcement. Though from talking with many of them, it became clear that their grasp on those rights were often shaky.

With the collaboration of local attorneys, law students, and community volunteers, we began compiling information into a printed, bilingual Know Your Rights Handbook that we distributed far and wide across the City. The calls didn’t stop though; instead, the inquiries were now seeking someone to come talk to youth about their rights when dealing with police.

To better engage with young people, we developed a Know Your Rights curriculum using improvisational theatre so youth can practice exercising their rights and de-escalate conflict without the real life consequences of an interaction with law enforcement. We began facilitating these workshops for free at churches, schools, and community centers, and in the past 3 years, we have conducted Know Your Rights Theatre with over 3,000 participants, helping them be better prepared, and hopefully avoid contact with the criminal justice system altogether. It was also around this time that MSPJC began hosting High School Interns during the summer through the City of Memphis Youth Employment progeam, training them to facilitate the workshops with their peers.

What about youth that have already come in contact with the criminal justice system? This question led us to broaden our work with youth through MSPJC’s Juvenile Justice Project, working to reduce recidivism and help young people get in compliance with court ordered community service hours by helping Juvenile Court identify and recruit Community Service Site Partners to provide meaningful and restorative, neighborhood based opportunities for young people to get their hours completed, thereby breaking down barriers to compliance like lack of accessible public transportation. We have also hosted several youth conferences that have provided young people the opportunity to complete

Realising that there are many young people who still slip through the cracks, and do end up in the system, in August, our staff began developing and implementing a series of ongoing workshops with youth incarcerated as adults at Jail East. Each session centers around building skills to deal with the emotional trauma and stress that comes with being locked up as a juvenile offender.

With all we are doing, there is still so much to be done, not only to ensure a better world for our young people, but to make sure they are prepared to inherit a world where there will no doubt be struggles to come. We call on you a lot, but that’s because we can’t do this on our own. We rely on the community’s support in order to sustain and grow our work to validate the experiences and struggles of our youth, and support them with the tools they need to find their own voices and and build a future worthy of their dreams.

We invite you to be a part of this work by making a donation of anything you can, or by becoming a Sustaining Member of Mid-South Peace & Justice Center.

Your support means everything to us.

We REALLY need your help.
From Pendleton to Serenity Towers, to Goodwill Villages, to Madison Towers, and in many other apartment complexes across Memphis, the state of our HUD subsidized apartment complexes is an outrage and a shame to our community.

We need your help today to push for part of a broader solution.

Please call Mayor Strickland’s office at (901)636-6000 and tell his office that we….

1. Need more Code Officers for Memphis. Currently the 20th largest city in America has only 30-35 total number of officers. We need at least 15-20 more, to work on weekends or add a night shift to meet the need and we need them this year.

2. As a City Councilman Mayor Strickland passed a RESERVE CODE OFFICER ordinance, which would allow city residents to be trained and deputized as Code Officers. This program, despite being created by the Mayor is not currently active. We are asking that the training be restarted so that we can recruit tenants in our worst complexes to work with code to quickly and easily identify problems on the premises. We stand ready to work with the City on this matter.

3. Call Congressman Cohen’s office at (901)544-4131 and please tell him that the conditions at PENDLETON PLACE APARTMENTS at 1780 Pendleton St, Memphis, TN 38114 are beyond negligence and please ask him to call on HUD for an 100% inspection of the property.

4. Call Senator Lamar Alexander office at Please call Congressman Cohen’s office at (901)544-4224 and please tell him that the conditions at PENDLETON PLACE APARTMENTS at 1780 Pendleton St, Memphis, TN 38114 are beyond negligence and please ask him to call on HUD for an 100% inspection of the property.
                                                                         Every single call will make a difference.

For more information about how you can help donate or support HOPE or those who do the work to combat homelessness, or would like to put on a HOPE shirt and volunteer,  contact Tamara Hendrix, (901)725.4990 or  tamara@midsouthpeace.org.

Now more than ever, we need the support of those who are fortunate enough to have secure housing to stand with our human family who don’t and make sure homelessness to be a priority to our lawmakers!