Mr. Rich Watkins

Board President

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

Board Vice President

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

Board Treasurer

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

Board Secretary

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

At-Large Board Member

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. 

Mr. Randell Gamble

At-Large Board Member

Randell Gamble is a native Californian born in Oakland, California.  He graduated from Castlemont High School and moved to Memphis in 1993, where he retired from Navy service in 1996. He became involved with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis (LSP) from its inception in 2015.  He is one of the co-founders and an Ambassador.  He was called to do this work after hearing about the late Dr. James Cameron in 2006 after a peace conference. Dr. Cameron survived a near lynching in Marion, Indiana in 1930 and founded the America Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He learned about the book “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” from a Judge who took a class at the Memphis Theological Seminary (MTS) in 2012, and wrote a report on one of the lynchings in Shelby County.  His passion is building relationships (Beloved Community) with diverse people in working to Strive Toward Freedom, in the spirit of Rev. Martin Luther King.  He has two adult children and one granddaughter who reside in Memphis.

Ms. Mary McIntosh

At-Large Board Member

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 100th 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.   

Mr. Mahendra Prasad

At-Large Board Member

Mahendra Prasad, who was born and raised in Memphis, is a PhD candidate in political science at UC Berkeley. He’s been published in several venues, including AI Magazine, Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s given several presentations, including at the American Political Science Association, EA Global London,  Foresight Institute, KCBS, and the Midwest Political Science Association. He completed his bachelor’s degree with a double major in philosophy and political science from the University of Pennsylvania. Mahendra’s work with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis began with the rediscovery of the People’s Grocery lynchings site, the lynchings that launched Ida B. Wells’ anti-lynching campaigns. Despite having grown up in Memphis and being a history buff, Mahendra is ashamed of himself because he never learned of the People’s Grocery until well into adulthood. He hopes that his participation in LSP will help prevent future generations from growing up in the ignorance that he had.   

Ms. Habiba Tramel

At-Large Board Member
Habibaadanne@yahoo.com

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