Symposium Panelists

Panel 1: The Lynching of Ell Persons

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.

Phyllis Aluko, Esq.

Phyllis Aluko is our Shelby County Public Defender. in that capacity, she leads the largest public defender's office in Tennessee and one of the oldest in the nation. Beginning in 2015 and apart from her professional duties, Phyllis Aluko led our community's efforts to commemorate the victims of the 1866 Memphis Massacre with a historical marker. Working with the support of the Memphis Branch of the NAACP and the National Park Service, she became part of a collective effort to increase our community's awareness of the massacre. In 2017, Ms. Aluko represented the Memphis NAACP in its collaboration with the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis to create the Ell Persons historical marker.

Ms. Aluko received a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in Pittsburgh, PA and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA. She is admitted to practice law in Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

Margaret Vandiver

Margaret Vandiver is a retired professor of criminal justice at the University of Memphis. She holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in criminology from Florida State University. She has studied state and collective violence, ranging from the use of the death penalty in America to contemporary instances of genocide. She is the author of Lethal Punishment: Lynchings and Legal Executions in the South and volunteers as a researcher for the Lynching Sites Project here in Memphis, Tennessee.

Darius Young

Darius J. Young is a native of Detroit, Michigan. He attended Florida A&M University where he earned a BS in African American studies and a master’s degree in history. In 2011, Young completed his Ph.D. in history from the University of Memphis.

He is an author and historian of black political movements during the 20^th Century. His first book, Robert R. Church Jr. and the African American Political Struggle (University Press of Florida, 2019), won the C. Calvin Smith Book Award from the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc. His current book project, Freedom Now!: Black Detroit and the Revolutionary Year of 1963 chronicles the historic events that led to a rise in Black radical activism in the city during 1963. Young has published a series of articles, book chapters, and reviews that can be found in Black Perspectives, The Journal of African American History, The Journal of Southern History, The Journal of American History, The Griot: The Journal of African American Studies, and the Florida Historical Quarterly. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of History and the Quality Enhancement Plan Director at Florida A&M University.

Professor Young is the recipient of several awards including the Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Fellowship, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History Research Fellowship, and the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change Teaching Fellowship. He is the recipient of the FAMU Center for Disability Access and Research Faculty Pacesetter Award (2012), the Florida A&M Teacher of the Year Award (2013), the Florida A&M Advanced Teacher of the Year Award (2018), and the Southern Conference on African American Studies Member of the Year (2019).

He currently sits on the advisory boards for the University Press of Florida, the Southern Conference on African American Studies, Inc., and the State of Florida’s African American History Task Force.

Panel 2: Lynching and Journalism

Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku

Karanja A. Ajanaku was named Executive Editor of The New Tri-State Defender in June of 2007, becoming Associate Publisher in 2018. A veteran journalist with 44 years of experience, including 26 ½ years at The Commercial Appeal, he is a graduate of the University of Missouri-Columbia (1977). Born April 26, 1955 in Natchitoches, La., he grew up in Kansas City, Mo. Prior to September 1986, he was known by the name Leroy Williams Jr. He earned a “grassroots doctorate” from the Greater Works Biblical College in Atlanta, with an emphasis on psychosocial research, the phenomenology of slavery. In conjunction with his research, he changed his name to Karanja Aidoo Ajanaku, which means “The guide who puts things in place/sets things in order for free and wealthy people.” He is the father of twins and has three grandchildren.

Dr. L. LaSimba M. Gray Jr

Dr. L. LaSimba M. Gray, Jr. is the Pastor Emeritus of the historic New Sardis Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. During the eighteen years that Dr. Gray has been at New Sardis, the membership has grown by 2000 members. He served as the Health Coordinator for the Memphis Affiliate of the Congress of National Black Churches for ten years. In this capacity, he led the Memphis affiliate in health ministries and environmental justices. In his prophetic ministry, he is the President of the Memphis satellite of Operation Push and serves on the Tennessee Human Rights Commission under three governors.

He teaches in the Congress of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., and Bluff City Christian College, in Memphis. In 2005, He served on the faculty of the Congress of Christian Education for the Baptist Association in Germany, and recently spent 10 days in Germany, Switzerland and Italy, teaching, touring and preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He has served on the board of licensure for social workers in the State of Tennessee since 2010. He has served on the Board of Director for Tri-state bank since 2004. He served as an adjunct professor for Memphis Theological Seminary in Spring of 2011.

Dr. Gray received the Bachelor of Science degree from Lane College, in 1968; the Masters Degree in Education from the University of Memphis, the Masters of Divinity and the Doctor of Ministry Degree from the Memphis Theological Seminary.

Dr. Gray was nurtured in the Christian faith by loving, devoted Christian parents, the Reverend Leo M. Gray, Sr. and Mrs. Corine Olivia Gray. He was baptized at the Middle Baptist Church. It was at the Middle Baptist Church that the pastor was introduced to prophetic ministry. The Reverend E.W. Williamson was an activist in the Civil Rights Movement and ran for the Memphis City School Board, when it was not popular, nor safe, to do so. Dr. Benjamin Lawson Hooks has served as the pastor’s role model in the ministry for the past 40 years and remained Dr. Gray’s pastor until his death in 2010.

In 1990, Dr. Gray organized a group of activists and filed a federal lawsuit challenging the runoff provision of city elections in Memphis. The federal court ruled, without a trial, that the runoff was unconstitutional and Dr. W. W. Herenton was elected the first African American Mayor of the city of Memphis.

On December 5, 1999, the Shelby County Commission renamed a major section of Holmes Road in Memphis “The Dr. L. LaSimba Gray, Jr. Road” to honor Dr. Gray for his long tenure of service in Shelby County. In February of 2000, Dr. Gray made available to the general public his newly published book: Deacons for Defense and Justice. This spellbinding book is about African-American Men in Bogalusa, Louisiana who armed themselves to defend their community against the KKK during the civil-rights movement.

Dr. Gray’s mission in life is to empower people to become all that God wants them to be, and all they can become to liberate the world from sin, poverty, and enslavement. Pastor Gray is married to the former Mary Tunstall; they have four daughters and five grandchildren.

Laura Faith Kebede

Laura Faith Kebede is the coordinator for The Institute for Public Service Reporting’s Civil Wrongs project at the University of Memphis that investigates unsolved and unresolved murders of the civil rights era, lynchings, and racial massacres and analyzes their enduring effects. Laura is a Report for America corps member and recently hosted and wrote WKNO public television’s special History, Justice and the Journalists on unresolved civil rights crimes in the Memphis area. She previously covered education inequities for Chalkbeat Tennessee and local government and religion for the Richmond Times-Dispatch prior to that. Her data reporting on possible school closures in Memphis equipped parents and teachers with information denied to them and led to widespread advocacy. Her focus on student voices led to systemic changes in Memphis schools and uplifted perspectives that are often ignored in traditional media. Laura is a former board member of the Lynching Sites Project of Memphis, a nonprofit that places historical markers where lynchings occurred. She is pursuing her master’s degree in liberal studies, an interdisciplinary program at the University of Memphis.

Otis Sanford

Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism at the University of Memphis, and is the author of “From Boss Crump to King Willie: How Race Changed Memphis Politics.” Sanford also serves as political analyst and commentator for WATN-TV Channel 24 News and writes a weekly political column for the Daily Memphian. He formerly was managing editor, editorial page editor and columnist for The Commercial Appeal.

Sanford has also worked at newspapers in Jackson, Mississippi, Pittsburgh and Detroit. In 2014, he was inducted into the Tennessee Journalism Hall of Fame.

Panel 3: To Save Our Bodies and Our Souls: Teaching Lynching History in 2022 (1:15 pm - 2:40 pm)

Khari Bowman

Khari Bowman is a program coordinator at Facing History and Ourselves. Her journey with Facing History started about seven years ago as a high school student in Memphis, where she took a Facing History elective course. While completing a course project, she and her classmates learned of the wrongful lynching of Ell Persons and decided to make their community aware of it. They raised money for a historical marker and were a part of a ceremony that commemorated his life and brought awareness to their community. She earned a B.A. in English Literature from Bryn Mawr College in 2021.

Myles Franklin

Myles Franklin is an alumnus of Memphis Central High School and George Washington University. During his senior year of high school in 2017, he became involved with the Lynching Sites Project after learning of Central’s frightful involvement in the lynching of Ell Persons. As student body president, he knew that he could spread awareness and help shed light on the darkness that had taken place 100 years earlier. Nearly five years later, Myles has reconnected with LSP to continue to shed light on the Ell Persons tragedy and other lynchings in the Mid-South area.

Charles Hughes

Dr. Charles L. Hughes is the director of the Lynne & Henry Turley Memphis Center at Rhodes College and Associate Professor of Urban Studies, with affiliations in Africana Studies and History. A historian of race, culture, and the South, he has published two acclaimed books and numerous articles, and has spoken to audiences in the United States and internationally. A native of Wisconsin, he can be found on Twitter at @CharlesLHughes2.

Sarah Stuart

As associate program director at Facing History and Ourselves, Sarah Stuart leads district and school partnerships and provides professional development. She also plans and facilitates events and workshops. Sarah joined Facing History in 2010 after many years of teaching AP psychology and the Facing History Holocaust and Human Behavior course.

Panel 4: Personal Legacies of the Ell Persons Lynching

Stephen Haley

Stephen recently retired from Southwest Tennessee Community College where he taught American history for nearly 40 years. He interviewed his grandfather in 1972 obtain a family history and as part of that interview he discussed the lynching.

It made quite an impression on him and he remembered many of the facts exactly as they happened over 50 years later. Stephen wrote an article about the lynching after he researched it that was published in Memphis Magazine in 1980 entitled The Last Lynching in Memphis.

Laura Faith Kebede

Laura Wilfong Miller

Laura Miller is a born and raised Memphian currently residing in Bartlett with her daughter Amelia, a 14-year-old freshman at Lausanne and dancer at the Dance Academy of Bartlett. They have two cats, Cutie and Angel, and one dog, Junie. As a registered nurse for more than 16 years, Laura spent nearly a decade in the NICU at The Med. For the last seven years her focus has shifted to telehealth and leadership positions. She is currently pursuing a masters in nursing with a focus in informatics. In her spare time Laura enjoys history, genealogy, documentaries, podcasts, reading, and all types of music.

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.

Michele Whitney

Michele Whitney is a transformational leader with over 20 years of diverse experience in nonprofit, for-profit, and government settings. Over the past 12 years, she has coordinated and facilitated various health research programs and has a passion for research in creating knowledge as one path to guide social change. Currently, Michele is the Director of Operations for Quantitative Science with the Manne Research Institute at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She is currently working on a Ph.D. in Human Services, where she plans to research the impact of pet loss through the lens of culture and ethnicity. As a south side Chicago native, Michele now resides in the Chicago suburbs and enjoys playing the flute and spending time with her two feline companions: Tina and Joe.