On September 1st, I woke up second-guessing myself.
In my editor’s letter for the new month, I had written about Memphis’ many complications, and my complicated relationship with my hometown. The first day of September is an unofficial local holiday — 901 Day — and instead of simply touting Memphis’ finer points, I had let my messy feelings show.
I talked about the way we drive our cars (“unpredictably” would be charitable) and the stench of garbage on the sidewalks. I also talked about what I called “active disregard for human life,” citing the murders of the Reverend Autura Eason-Williams and of Dr. Yvonne Nelson, and of the several hundred other people who have been, or will be, killed in our city this year.
That morning, I stood by what I had written — every word was honest — but questioned whether I ought to have simply talked about my love of this community without bringing up the mess. I worried that I was raining on the city’s parade for itself by sharing that as much as I love this place — and I do love this place — I also want desperately for it to be safer, more equitable, more hopeful, more prosperous.
Then, on September 2nd, increasingly alarming news reports pinged my phone. Early that Friday morning, a woman named Eliza Fletcher had not returned home from her run. Fletcher’s photo began to circulate widely. She had been out for an early-morning jog — she ran marathons, had small children, and worked; when else could she have trained? — when someone in a dark SUV abducted her violently. The following Monday afternoon, the Memphis Police Department found Fletcher’s body behind an abandoned duplex in South Memphis.
I did not know Eliza Fletcher, not really, but she lived near where I do, and we had chatted briefly as neighbors do. I could tell in passing that she was a loving mother of her two young boys; I have learned since that she was also a wife, a church member, and a kindergarten teacher who, in the early weeks of the pandemic, sang “This Little Light of Mine” for her small students in a video recording.
Her alleged captor, Cleotha Henderson, was a man who spent two decades in prison for an earlier kidnapping, only to be released in 2020. In addition to the abduction and murder of Fletcher, he is now charged with a separate 2021 rape and kidnapping case (the rape kit was not tested until after it was linked to the Fletcher case — ponder that for a moment).
This man is 38 years old, the same age I am. In 2000, when he abducted the late Kemper Durand, a local attorney, Henderson was 16 years old. Already, he has spent more than half his life behind bars, and surely will spend all or nearly all the rest of it locked up, too. When he was imprisoned previously — his first arrest came at age 11, in 1995 — how seriously did anyone take the work of rehabilitating a clearly broken human? What do we expect will happen, if we essentially put prisoners in cold storage for decades and then deposit them back into the community? Is any of this actually working?
Two days after the police located Fletcher’s body, the MPD issued an unusual statement: Citizens were to shelter in place. A man named Ezekiel Kelly was allegedly shooting people, apparently at random, throughout the city. Seven people were shot, three fatally. Kelly livestreamed portions of his own rampage. Nineteen years old now, he already has prison experience, having served only 11 months of a three-year sentence for attempted murder and other charges. Again, I ask: Is any of this actually working?
Violence is not unique to Memphis; we know this. But we have problems that feed on each other. Ours is largely a poor city, lacking sufficient economic mobility and, for many citizens, lacking a clear on-ramp to better lives. We need better, more accessible mental and physical healthcare for all. We need leaders with vision, and just as importantly, leaders who collaborate with each other and with the people they serve. We need — each of us — to commit to the part we can play in lifting Memphis up.
Memphis is a city of contrasts: rich and poor, Black and white, healthy and not, and on and on. The murder of Eliza Fletcher is heart-shattering — and headline-grabbing, in part because, yes, she was young, white, pretty, and privileged. The shooting rampage overtook all our lives because it affected so many neighborhoods, as Kelly allegedly carjacked person after person. No one could maintain the illusion of immunity. Loath as we humans are to admit it, we are all heartbreakingly, beautifully vulnerable to each other.
What happens next is up to you, up to me, up to all of us.
