How you can help in Memphis:

Equality & Justice Resources

Our Mission: Provide information for allies in Memphis to learn about racial injustices in our Black communities. Provide ways to support movements and organizations like Black Lives Matter that are working to address inequity and help our Black communities thrive.

basics of being an active ally

  • Listen to Black voices.

  • Use your platforms to amplify those voices.

  • Step back. This isn't about you.

  • Use your resources & skills to do what you can when asked.

  • If someone corrects you, listen then do better.

  • Keep it up.

Black Lives Matter

SUPPORTING BAIL FUNDS

Donate to your local bail fund and contact local officials to demand the bail system be eliminated.Black leaders in official Black Lives Matter chapters and the general movement have long called for prison reform and an end to the cash bail system. Money should not be the only reason one person walks free and another is imprisoned. Cash bail disproportionally imprisons Black and Brown Americans.Now, protesters are being arrested en masse and COVID-19 is running rampant through jails and prisons. Inmates cannot social distance and protesters should not be locked up for exercising their constitutional rights in the fight for Black lives.

What you can do right now:

Contact your local representatives

**Contact your local officials and demand that they: **

  • End bail systems.

  • Direct budget away from the police and use it for fully-funded schools, free childcare, tax relief, rent relief, transit, and other social supports.

  • Focus funds and other resources on Black communities. Members of those communities should control all management and allocation decisions.

Memphis' fiscal year begins July 1, 2020.
Make sure you understand Memphis' and Shelby County's proposed budgets.

Email or call your Memphis City Council and Shelby County Commissioners. Find all your local representatives here. Put in your address and click your district number.

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Do your homework then get to work with the resources below. Consider how you can support with your listening ears, patronage, time, donations, word-of-month promotion, or whatever else you've got.

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Activism Groups

Groups you can rely on for news & info on current demonstrations, other actions, & demands.

I AM A MAN mural

On being an ally

A list of helpful readings. Click here for a list of Black-owned book stores in the U.S. Most can ship just like Amazon.

Businesses

Directories & lists of Black-owned businesses.

JUICE Orang Mound

ORGANIZATIONS

Organizations or chapters based in Memphis who are led by, working with, and/or supporting local Black communities & Black Memphians.

  • MLK50: Justice Through Journalism is an online publication focused on social justice.

  • My Sistah's House is a non-profit founded by and for Black transwomen.

  • Interactive Map of Memphis CDCs. CDCs anchor capital in communities by developing residential & commercial property, ranging from affordable housing to businesses.

  • JUICE Orange Mound engages citizens and businesses for community-led revitalization in Orange Mound.

  • SisterReach advocates for the reproductive autonomy of women and teens of color, poor & rural women, LGBTQ+, and gender non-conforming people.

  • Mid-South Food Bank feeds those in need, regardless of race. But due to a few hundred years of systematic economic oppression, much of the country's and Memphis' poverty is concentrated in Black communities.

  • South Memphis Alliance is a leading provider of holistic support services to young people transitioning from foster care.

  • NAACP Memphis helps ensure the educational, social, political, and economic equal rights of all people.

art organizations

Art's organizations focusing on Black & POC creatives in Memphis:

Black History

A first step to being an ally is to learn the U.S. history they don't teach in schools—the lessons that center Black Americans.

Places to go:

Things to read and watch:

  • PBS series: Race - The Power of an Illusion (3 one-hour episodes)

  • The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. DuBois

  • The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, Mehrsa Baradaran

  • Eyes on the Prize: Americas Civil Rights Years 1954 to 1965, Juan Williams (PBS doc 14 one-hour episodes)

  • Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, Harriet A. Washington

  • The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson

  • 100 African-Americans Who Shaped American History, Chrisanne Beckner

  • Memphis Burning: Housing and Inequality, Preston Lauterbach

Have something to add or address?

This website is run by volunteers. We are allies working to educate other allies. We welcome critique from members of the Black community while acknowledging that it is not up to Black people to do this labor for us. Thank you to the Black Memphians and white allies who critiqued this site before publishing. We encourage anyone to reach out if you see something that needs adding or correcting. Drop us a note here.

Updated June 12, 2020, 11:40 AM