MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

City of Memphis bracing for winter after historic city shutdown in January

The Hernando DeSoto Bridge as seen during the January 2026 winter storm. Photo by Brad Vest for MLK50  Memphians have faced multiple severe heat warnings ...
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Does your Memphis home need repairs? You may qualify for these assistance programs

Water damage created a hole in Ms. Carolyn’s dining room ceiling that she has been trying to get fully repaired for a few years. Photo by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report For America ...
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Power and Prejudice: How a little-known Tennessee law convicts Black children for murders they didn’t commit

his is a story about 104 children sentenced to die in prison by the state of Tennessee. Each was convicted of a murder — even though some had not killed anyone. In several cases, the children had been ...
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Mayor avoids talk of Trump’s task force during ‘State of the City’ speech

Memphis Mayor Paul Young delivers his State of the City address at First Baptist Church Broad in Binghampton on Tuesday. Photo by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report For America Memphis ...
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Ordinance attempts to limit juvenile isolation, but county has no way to enforce it

Jerri Green, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris and director of the Shelby County Department of Corrections Anthony Alexander answer questions during a press conference in June 2025. Photo by Andrea ...
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He was hit by a cruiser at an anti-ICE march. THP hasn’t released video of the incident.

The front of a Tennessee Highway Patrol cruiser makes contact with KB and a safety marshal trying to stop it from driving into the crowd behind it at the ICE Out For Good protest on Jan. 11.
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Nashville stripped Memphis of its voice in Congress. Memphians still demanded to be heard.

Rachael Goodwin Spriggs and other Tennesseans protested during a House committee meeting that was a part of the special session on May 6. Photo by Andrea Morales / MLK50 They sang, chanted, cried 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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Memphis’ unmet promise leaves Black burial sites in disarray

A headstone marking where a couple rests at Hollywood Cemetery is unreachable from the main path because of the tangle of overgrowth. Photo by Andrea Morales for MLK50 An empty Budweiser can was ...
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A Sister’s Love and Grief: Redefining justice in Tyré Nichols’ memory

“A Sister’s Love and Grief” is a three-part series that explores what Keyana Dixon’s life has been like since January 2023, when five former Memphis police officers beat her younger brother, Tyré ...