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Editor’s note: The following essay is excerpted from “Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness,” a forthcoming book by Ashanté M. Reese. This excerpt is used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton &; Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Preorder the book here. Repasts are often thought of as offerings to people we know or are somehow connected to. They are a way to provide some respite for grieving families. But what happens when a whole city is mourning?

Photo illustration by Andrea Morales / MLK50 This is the first piece in MLK50’s ongoing series on how utility cutoffs impact working-class Memphians. Nearly one in five Memphis households experienced at least one utility cutoff for nonpayment in 2025, according to data obtained by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism through a public records request.

The Bail Hearing Room at the Shelby County Justice Center is seen on April 2. Photo by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report For America Laramie Wheeler walked into a dim room at the Walter L. Bailey Jr. Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar Ave. She paid $2,500 to bail out a man accused of harassment. “There’s nothing quite like going to the bail window, paying cash and getting a receipt for a human being,” she said.

Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security Investigations agents working with the Tennessee State Highway Patrol search a car during a traffic stop on Summer Avenue in November 2025. Photo by Andrea Morales / MLK50 More than 3,000 people were arrested during the first two months of the Memphis Safe Task Force’s deployment. Only 6% of them appeared to be white, according to an MLK50: Justice Through Journalism analysis.

Tennessee State Troopers yell at demonstrators after detaining Rebecca Leathers during the “ICE Out for Good” demonstration along Summer Avenue on Jan. 11 in Memphis. The protest was held three days after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.

Some of the library workers who are a part of the Memphis Public Library Workers United union sit for a portrait at Crosstown Concourse. Photo by Kevin Wurm / MLK50 / CatchLight Local / Report for America T’Arrah Mathis loves doing storytime with neighborhood children at the historic Orange Mound Library, where she works. Memphis Public Libraries supported her work as the author of children’s books, Mathis said, so she seized the chance to become a library assistant.

Memphis saw fewer breast cancer deaths for Black women from 2013 to 2023, according to a new Susan G. Komen Foundation analysis. The decline was 2.3% in Memphis and nearby parts of Arkansas and Mississippi. It’s an improvement in an area that ranks as one of the top 10 U.S. metropolitan areas with the worst breast cancer survival rates for Black women.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said Tuesday that the “Memphis Safe Task Force” is focused on violent crime, and that the coalition of 31 agencies has already arrested “850 violent criminals and known gang members.” But a look at the task force’s operations on Monday shows that most of the people arrested were not charged with a violent crime, and immigrants are being arrested on administrative — not criminal — warrants, according to a document obtained by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.

Rick was charging his phone at an outdoor power outlet near the Renasant Convention Center downtown recently when two public security officers approached him. They told him he had to move — and that if he didn’t, they would call the police. “I ain’t even did nothing. I was just charging my phone,” he told MLK50: Justice Through Journalism, adding that the officers didn’t instruct him on where to go or offer him any resources. But Rick has a clean criminal record and is eager to keep it that way.

President Donald Trump promised that his mass deportation campaign would target the “worst of the worst” people and make Americans safer, but nearly half of the arrests recorded in the Memphis area since January have been of people who have not been convicted of any crime, according to data analyzed by MLK50: Justice Through Journalism.