City of Memphis history

One of the country’s worst race riots took place there in May 1866. It was incorporated in 1826.

Even the rights of free African Americans were threatened when the ban on the slave trade was repealed in 1840.

When the Civil War came in 1861, Tennessee sided with the Confederacy and a Confederate Army base was established in Memphis.

Nationwide slavery was officially ended on June 19th, 1865 and this comes two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Such unprovoked violence aroused sympathy in the United States Congress for the freedmen, drawing attention to the need for legal safeguards in their behalf and thus helping to win passage (June 13, 1866) of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

In 1869 First Baptist Church was built on Beale Street.

The Grand Lodge, an order of African American Masons, was established here in 1870.

In 1878, a yellow fever epidemic claimed 5,000 lives and caused most European-Americans to exit.

The city went bankrupt, declined in population, and in 1879 surrendered its charter.

Drastic sanitary reforms, continued cotton trading, and the growth of a market in hardwood contributed to its economic recovery, and a new city charter was granted in 1893.

W.C. Handy wrote the first blues song published in America- Memphis Blues in 1912, Elvis Presley began his recording career at Memphis’ Sun Records, and B.B. King got his start on Beale Street.

Race relations were helped in 1925, when Tom Lee, a black man who could not swim, risked his life in a small boat to rescue 32 European Americans on the M.E. Norman ship that sank in the Mississippi River.

Growing in city infrastructure and status again, in 1929, the Municipal Airport was completed.

In 1931, Memphis’ first Cotton Carnival was celebrated.

The city received an economic boost in 1934, when citizens opted to join the Tennessee Valley Authority electric system.

In 1943, the Army Depot and Mallory Air Force Depot were built.

By 1963, Memphis had as many African-American registered voters as Anglo-American registered voters.

Following the deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker, Memphis sanitation workers officially went on strike in February 1968 to protest the years of discriminatory treatment and demand better working conditions.

President Jimmy Carter created Black Music Month in 1979 and, now, we’re using this month to celebrate all of the talented Black musicians in the city.

In 1991, Memphis elected its first African-American mayor, Doctor W.W. Herenton.