inward journey memphis

Tag: Inward Journey

Local organizer creates space for inmates to process trauma.

• Post author By Kailynn Johnson
• Post date October 19, 2023

A local organizer believes that through processing trauma and tapping into their emotional wellness, inmates at correctional facilities may have an increased chance at controlling their environment and seeing a positive outcome for themselves.

“The jailers and deputy jailers think that they actually control the jail, and they don’t,” says entrepreneur, facilitator, and professional organizer Keedran Franklin. “The people who are living there control the culture of how things go inside of the jail.”

Through his facilitation work, Franklin says that he deals with processing trauma, and is involved in a local group called Inward Journey. 

While Franklin and Inward Journey pursue doing inner work and emotional healing for their community, they have also been able to provide a space for healing inside correctional facilities as well.

Franklin posted a picture of a recent meeting at 201 Poplar, where he explained that this particular group has zero percent recidivism. Franklin refers to the project as “Inside Circle/Inward Journey” and “Black Men Build.”

According to Franklin, guards brought what he called the “12 most influential people … people who are making things happen around there.” 

“It’s almost like a behavior modification model,” says Franklin. “Guys sit in circles, talk amongst each other.”

The idea is for the individuals to work out their traumas so that they don’t “go from zero to 100.”

“They stop at 10 and think. They stop at 20 and think. They stop at 50 and think. They don’t get to 100,” said Franklin. “In a sense, the guards will realize that they don’t have to be so hard. They don’t have to inculcate, suppress, or oppress the residents as much because they think they’re in lock-up or consignment.”

Franklin cites the work laid out by one of his elders, Dr. James McLeary. McLeary is a board member for Inside Circle. 

According to information provided by Inside Circle, McLeary has been a “critical force driving the growth and success of programs at both Folsom State Prison and San Quentin State Prison.” Franklin says that McLeary’s work involves meetings with gang members in those facilities.

Inside Circle was formerly known as the Men’s Support Group at the California State Prison, Sacramento. It was started in the aftermath of a race riot in 1996. An inmate named Patrick Nolan spent time reflecting on the event, and had an “ intense determination to shift the dynamic driving such extreme violence and hatred.” 

Many years have passed since the initial meeting of the group, but the work has been spread to centers in Illinois, New Jersey, and San Quentin.

“It was pretty miraculous. You had guys with life first, without parole, plus 200 years, are now on the outside,” says Franklin. “The parole board was seeing enough change to say ‘you’ll do well outside.’”

McLeary’s work serves as a catalyst for the work that Franklin and others are doing at 201 Poplar. The group had their first meeting on Monday, October 16th.  

“I know the model, and what it has done for people who are far worse than these guys, on paper, far worse than these guys in 201 and the county lockup,” said Franklin. 

• Tags 201 Poplar , Inward Journey , Keedran Franklin , Memphis

Trauma therapy ‘transformational work’ at 201 Poplar

Eldra Jackson III, left, and James McLeary, right, eat at The Cupboard after the leaders from Inside Circle and Inward Journey have been working with Shelby County Jail inmates. (Brad Vest/Special to The Daily Memphian)

Peer-guided healing circles inside the Shelby County Jail helps participating detainees work through trauma, become positive role models and learn to trust in the possibility of healing.

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Julia Baker

Julia Baker covers Memphis and Shelby County’s law enforcement agencies and is a member of The Daily Memphian’s public safety reporting team. A lifelong Memphian, Julia graduated from the University of Memphis in 2021. Other publications and organizations she has written for include Chalkbeat, Memphis Flyer, Memphis Parent magazine and Memphis magazine.

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Memphis haunted by long, conflicting history with confederate monuments

The violent clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters have renewed calls to bring down Confederate monuments across the nation — and in Memphis.

Memphis is pursuing the removal of statues of Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and President Jefferson Davis, who both lived in Memphis during their lives. Forrest was a slave trader, celebrated cavalry commander and head of the Ku Klux Klan — although historians say he disavowed and disbanded the organization in 1869.

5 things to know about Nathan Bedford Forrest

Here's a quick overview of Memphis' Confederate monuments and namesakes through the years:

1899: The park at Union and Manassas, now known as Health Science Park, is named Forrest Park, memorializing the Memphis native.

1904: Forrest's remains are relocated to Forrest Park from Elmwood Cemetary, where he requested to be buried alongside his wife and soldiers.

1905: After a fundraising effort going back to 1987, New York designer Charles Henry Niehaus' $30,000 statue of Forrest astride his charger King Philip is installed over the graves.

1907:  Jefferson Davis Park, now known as Mississippi River Park, is thought to have been created this year. The park, designed by noted Kansas City landscape architect George Kessler, sits on the former site of an exhibition hall that housed reunions of Confederate veterans. 

1909: A "Confederate History of Memphis" plaque is placed by the Confederate Dames Tyler Chapter in Jefferson Davis Park.

1964: A statue sculpted by Alto Pera of Italy is installed in Confederate Park, now Memphis Park, memorializing brief Memphis resident and Confederate States of America President Jefferson Davis.

1969: After Forrest fell from public favor during the 1960s, the state discontinues a number of official state holidays, including Forrest's birthday — although the state continues to celebrate " Nathan Bedford Forrest Day ." Through the 1970s and 1980s, calls for the removal of his statue and grave intensified.

1986: "KKK" is painted on the statue.

Removing Confederate statues right and righteous

1988: The Memphis chapter of the NAACP leads an effort to have the remains of Forrest and his wife and the statue removed after the University of Tennessee in Memphis scheduled a ceremony to recognize its adoption of Forrest Park and honor an outgoing president. The program was canceled, but Forrest's descendants wouldn't agree to move the graves.

1992: The statue is vandalized with paint.

1994: The phrases "racist murderer," "slave trader" and "the man on the horse ... head of the KKK" are spray-painted on the Forrest statue as the Sons of Confederate Veterans celebrates its 173rd birthday in Memphis. The Jefferson Davis statue in Mississippi River Park, formerly Jefferson Davis Park, was also vandalized.

1995: The Center City Commission votes against removing the Forrest statue and his remains. Also this year, a Sons of Confederate Veterans group unsuccessfully proposes to adopt Confederate Park and install granite gravestones dedicated to fallen soldiers.

1999: The group Inward Journey African American Council unofficially renames Forrest Park the Nat Turner Park after the revolutionary who led a slave uprising in 1831. Also this year, the Memphis Parks Commission debates remaking Jefferson Davis Park into a cancer survivors' park, moving the Davis statue and changing the name. The Richard & Annette Bloch Cancer Survivors Park was instead built on Perkins Extended in East Memphis.

2005: Momentum builds to rename three Memphis parks: Forrest Park, Jefferson Davis Park and Confederate Park. The Rev. Al Sharpton visits Memphis for a "Rally for Dignity" attended by about 250 people.

2009: The Forrest Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans succeeds in quietly adding Forrest Park to the National Register of Historic Places, temporarily sidelining efforts to rename the park and remove its monument and graves.

2013: The Memphis City Council votes to change Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park, Confederate Park to Memphis Park and Jefferson Davis Park to Mississippi River Park, sparking a KKK rally and lawsuits challenging the name change. The 1,000-pound, 10-foot granite "Forrest Park" marker is moved into storage. Later in the year, Forrest's statue is vandalized with red paint and an expletive.

2015: The City Council votes to remove Forrest's statue and he and his wife's graves. Shortly thereafter, the Forrest statue is vandalized with a reference to Black Lives Matter, and then with the phrase "Aw Go What," an apparent reference to then-mayoral candidate Leo Awgowhat, who denied involvement.

2016: The Tennessee General Assembly votes to require waivers from the Tennessee Historical Commission to modify monuments to historical figures. Previously, the law only required waivers for war monuments. The Tennessee Historical Commission then rejects the city's application for a waiver to remove the Forrest statue.

2017: In August, the city announces it will apply for a waiver to remove the Jefferson Davis statue. Because of a technicality, the Historical Commission will again vote on the city's waiver to remove the Forrest statue, possibly in October.

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." –Ida B. Wells

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Mr. Rich Watkins

Richard is a Memphis native who graduated from Morehouse College and then Georgetown Law School. He has practiced in the area of intellectual property law in law firm private practice and corporate in house positions in Philadelphia, Chicago, and now Memphis. Outside of his law practice, Richard has volunteered his time serving at the local executive officer level in the Morehouse alumni networks in each of the three cities above. He reached the level of president in Chicago and in Memphis. While in Chicago, Richard led his alumni chapter in raising over a fifty thousand dollars in scholarship funds for area Morehouse students. While in Memphis, he was able to turn a loss leading event for his local alumni network into a positive generator of scholarship funds. Richard is pleased to lend his talents to the Lynching Sites Project to further the goal of changing the narrative in Shelby County. 

Richard is married to Rev. Ayanna Watkins, Executive Director of Memphis Interfaith Coalition For Action and Hope. They are the proud parents of two daughters, with the youngest born in the summer of 2020. Richard enjoys spending time with his family, cooking, bow hunting, cycling, and listening to live music. 

Ms. Iris Love-Scott

Iris Love Scott is a native Memphian, attended Overton High school and is a graduate of the University of Memphis.  Iris’s work has been embedded in the Memphis community for over 25 years as she has worked tirelessly as a community advocate and grassroots efforts for the better part of her professional career.  

Iris came to LSP quite by accident after researching lynching victims in the south. This interest was piqued when a friend suggested going to Birmingham, Alabama to participate in a soil collection project with the Equal Justice Initiative and Bryan Stevenson. It was such a moving experience that she connected with the Lynching Site Project of Memphis.

Iris is a mother of one son, four grandchildren and three fur babies (two cats and one dog). Her hobbies are sewing, gardening, good cooking, picture taking and reading.

Mr. Steve Strain

Born in Memphis in the 1960s, I have long been aware of our many unjust racial attitudes and practices. I made a beginning as an activist in college, but an addictive lifestyle soon rendered me ineffective for anything but the self-seeking pursuit of personal gratification, a dark and self-destructive path. After entering recovery two decades ago, I began work on my own negative attitudes and behaviors. In addition to giving me a new way to live, this work has gradually led me back to some of the nobler convictions of my youth. After some years of reading civil rights history, a recovery friend recommended  Just Mercy  by Bryan Stevenson. Sometime later I attended my first LSP meeting. I am so grateful to have discovered this community, and even more grateful for the opportunity to serve our group's mission as a board member. 

Mr. Jasper St. Bernard

I was born in Philadelphia, PA, and raised in the Southern New Jersey area (a town called Bridgeton). I would later move to the Atlanta area with my family shortly before the Olympics. In 2008 I moved to Wisconsin with my wife and two children, where we lived for nine years. During that time I was able to obtain bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Interpersonal/Organizational Communication. I moved to Memphis, TN in 2017 seeking a Master’s degree in Philosophy. After a year I was able to move into the doctoral program at the University of Memphis.

I learned about the Lynching Sites Project while attending a history class with Jennifer Mitchell Bennie. She would race off to the weekly meetings as our class was ending. It was through her invitation that I attended my first meeting last year. I was drawn to the mission of the organization in part because of my own academic interests. I am currently focusing on the thought of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and her anti-lynching work. It was after attending a commemoration service last year that I was convinced that I wanted to join the work of LSP. I was working alongside an organization dedicated to social justice work while in Wisconsin and was glad to find an organization here in Memphis where I could continue with that work.

I believe strongly in the work of the Lynching Sites Project. I agree with Wells-Barnett that we can only move forward through truth-telling. It is the truth that will set us all free together. I deeply appreciate LSP’s dedication to telling the truth.

Mr. John Ashworth

John Ashworth is a Vietnam veteran with 21 years of active military service followed by 20 years of commercial aviation management.  His educational pursuits included studies at Tennessee State University, Columbia College, Missouri; Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan; and DeVry Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.

In 2007 he returned to his hometown of Brownsville, Tennessee, and pursued with diligence his interest in African American history.

He is the co-founder of the Dunbar Carver Museum in Brownsville, Co-Founder and Treasurer of the Geneva Miller Historical Society; Chairperson of the Elbert Williams Memorial Committee; Board member of Tennesseans for Historical Justice (THJ). The advantages of living in a small town allow him to remain civically engaged in the community, he is the Secretary of the Haywood County Election Commission, a member of the Brownsville Historic Zoning Commission, and the Brownsville Regional Planning Commission.

As he describes it, “I don’t sit around well”. He is an avid reader, quasi-serious chess player, amateur photographer, loves to travel, but above all his most cherished and important responsibility is Co-Director of the Ashworth Center for Exceptional Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren. 

Timothy Huebner

Timothy S. Huebner  is the Associate Provost and Sternberg Professor of History at Rhodes College.  A specialist in the history of the nineteenth-century United States, he is the author or editor of four books, including  Liberty and Union:  The Civil War Era and American Constitutionalism  (2016).  In addition, he has published numerous articles in scholarly journals, and his essays, reviews, and op-ed pieces have appeared in the Memphis Commercial Appeal , the Nashville Tennessean , the  Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch  website,  The Weekly Standard, SCOTUSBlog , the  Washington Post , and the  New York Times . Prof. Huebner and his students gained national attention in spring 2018, when he led a collaborative effort among Rhodes College, historic Calvary Episcopal Church, and the National Park Service to erect a marker at the site of an antebellum slave market operated by Nathan Bedford Forrest in downtown Memphis. 

A member of the faculty at Rhodes since 1995, Prof. Huebner teaches courses on the History of the American South, U.S. Constitutional History, and the Civil War and Reconstruction era. He founded and directed the Rhodes Institute for Regional Studies, an interdisciplinary undergraduate research program, and later served as chair of the Department of History for six years.  Since 2019, he has served as Associate Provost at Rhodes. 

He is married to Kristin Lensch, and they have two children.

Ms. Kelsey Lamkin

A West Tennessee native, Kelsey Lamkin graduated with her M.A. in Public History from Middle Tennessee State University in 2018. In her short career, she has worked in the private and quasi-government sector and has completed projects throughout Tennessee. She is currently an Architectural Historian for EBI Consulting.

Kelsey has worked closely with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis since 2019 and has used her historical training to commemorate victims of lynching and document local lynching sites.  She is a new member of BLDG Memphis and looks forward to supporting communities in Memphis and beyond in the years to come. Outside of her work, she enjoys re-reading Stephen King novels and spending time with her dogs and husband, an aspiring criminal defense attorney.

Ms. Mary McIntosh

Mary McIntosh, a native of Minnesota, teaches Pre-AP World History/Geography, Facing History and Ourselves, and Contemporary Issues at Central High School in Memphis, TN. She joined LSP in 2016 upon learning that some Central High School students in 1917 had been spectators at the lynching of Ell Persons.  She helped to plan an all-school assembly focused on telling the story of the lynching and then coordinated participation of Central High students in the Memorial Service marking the 100 th anniversary of the lynching which included the 2017 Central High Choir singing a spiritual as people walked the path to the lynching site. 

Mary has long sought to incorporate lessons of history to the cause of social justice today.  In 2014 in response to the protests in Ferguson MO around the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police, she began a club called Courageous Conversations dedicated to providing a space for young people to learn to talk about current political and social justice issues with compassion and integrity while also being grounded in history and empirical facts.   She also leads the Facing History Student Leadership Group at her school and is partnering with Narrative 4, an international organization that uses the power of sharing individual stories to encourage young people to lead with empathy. Most recently, she has begun a club called “History: Challenges and Choices” which provides space for students to study recent legislation that attempts to influence the way history is taught in public schools.

She has studied with the World War II Museum in New Orleans and in Normandy, France, participated as a Bezos Educator Scholar at the Aspen Summer Ideas Festival and in 2019, was named a Belz-Lippman Holocaust Educator of the Year (TN) and the High School Teacher of the Year for Shelby County Schools.  Mary believes that teaching history allows her to help students understand how the realities of society today are often echoes of the stories and identities of events and people from the past.  Grateful for the call to do work that truly matters each day, Mary and her husband Stephen have two grown children who live in Nashville, TN and Eugene, OR.   

Rev. Dr. Almella Starks-Umoja

I was introduced to LSP by a friend from Chicago, organizer and historian Doria Johnson, whose great-grandfather was lynched. Doria was on a panel at Rhodes College with Timothy B. Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till.  Since becoming an LSP member I have participated in the commemoration of Ell Persons, attended the lecture given by Dr. Andre Johnson, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Memphis, the Indie Memphis film festival, and the most recent LSP retreat. I would like to see the LSP mission embraced by members of the academic community at the Memphis Theological Seminary.

I grew up in a family of passionate civil rights and social justice advocates, and continued advocacy through my work as a pastor in the AME Church (retired).  I have been selected as one of the speakers for the 2018 Samuel DeWitt Proctor conference, themed “The Struggle Continues.”   

I am a graduate of the 1985 executive class of Leadership Memphis, and a charter member of the Starks Institute for Faith, Race and Social Justice at the Memphis Theological Seminary. I am a Golden Life member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.  

I have one daughter who is a school psychologist in Denver Colorado. I enjoy listening to Audible and reading The Atlantic magazine. I do not subscribe to cable TV and I am an avid viewer of PBS television

Ms. Habiba Tramel

Habiba Tramel born and raised in Rochester, NY and moved to Memphis, TN in April of 2006 after retiring from a General Motors plant with 30 years under her belt. She then got custody of her four grandchildren who are now 25, 21, and 19-year-old twins.  Three are back in Rochester, but the 21-year-old is here with her in Memphis. She joined LSP along with Sam McDaniel and Iris Love-Scott under similar circumstances. She found the work to be quite rewarding and a learning experience as a born and raised Northerner. She is a member of several organizations, one being Inward Journey where she serves as an elder on the tribal council. This is another important organization in Memphis that helps make people aware of injustices and prejudices in the city.  She is learning and still adjusting to Southerners and Southern living and customs. She is always asked why she moved south if she has no relatives here, and her answer is “for my grandchildren and because it’s hot!”.

“Until the color of your skin is the target, you will never understand” Angela Davis

• Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

Tours, Attractions and Things To Do in Nizhny Novgorod

Nizhny Novgorod is the fifth largest city in Russia with a population exceeding 1.2 million. The city is located at the confluence of two rivers - the Volga and Oka. It is the center of Nizhny Novgorod region and Volga Federal District, as well as one of the country’s major administrative, economic and cultural centers.

Furthermore, Nizhny Novgorod is the Russia’s largest industrial center with the enterprises of mechanical engineering, metalworking information technology playing a leading role.

Nizhny Novgorod was founded in 1221 by Prince Yuri Vsevolodovich to protect Russian borders. Under Ivan III, Nizhny Novgorod was a sentry city. It had a regular army. This was the place for Moscow to march against Kazan.

Nizhny Novgorod made a great contribution to the construction of the Russian state. In 1612, Kuz’ma Minin and Prince Dmistry Pozharsky’s militia from Nizhny Novgorod played a decisive role in the liberation of Moscow from Polish intervention.

During the Soviet period from 1932 to 1990, the city was named after Maxim Gorky, the Great Russian writer who was born there. From 1959 to 1991 it was a “forbidden” city for foreigners because of defense plants, located there. On October 22, 1990 the city got its former name, and about at the same time, it began developping tourist business.

Today, the city, once playing such a significant role in the history of Russia, is developed into a modern metropolis. So, the urban development plan intends to build a metro bridge, cableway, funicular, and a new branched transport infrastructure there. Furthermore, Nizhny Novgorod is the Russia’s largest center of river cruise tourism and venue of Nizhny Novgorod fair-based major international exhibitions.

Nizhny Novgorod is one of the richest cultural centers of Russia. The most prominent artists have received education in the local theater and art schools. The city has opened a large number of theaters, museums and cinemas.

This city can surprise any traveler by an entwinement of modern and ancient buildings, each time rising before your eyes in a completely unexpected appearance.

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