Orange Mound was the first planned community built for and by African-Americans in the south. Middle-class black Memphians purchased inexpensive plots of land. Black-owned businesses flourished until the 1980s chronic disinvestment brought widespread crime and poverty. Today there is a strong, resident-led network of community and faith organizations and a stronger sense of history and neighborhood pride. The heart of Orange Mound is Melrose High School and its award-winning football team.
The NAACP is focusing its legal power on Shelby County to ensure its citizens the right to vote on November 6. Leaders in Orange Mound join those efforts by creating positive experiences at the polls to ensure people exercise those rights.
The public art exhibit that crosses Memphis neighborhoods from Orange Mound to Frayser does more than anything before to break down the barriers between the Brooks Museum and the community it serves or, as even some fans might point out, underserves.
The Reimagining Historic Melrose event celebrates the neighborhood asset while drawing outside attention to a project potentially backed by funds related to the Fairgrounds redevelopment.
Expectant moms in Orange Mound face some of the country’s highest rates of pregnancy complications and infant mortality, but JUICE Orange Mound has a plan for healthier families that starts with the neighborhood’s biggest baby shower.
While many community members and organizations often have great ideas for community development projects, the reality is there is not enough money available to fund everyone's vision. Last year, Community LIFT’s Empowerment Fund paved the way for improvement and beautification projects across the city, but a new study shows that much more funding is needed to keep momentum from those projects moving forward.
Propel, a business accelerator for existing minority-owned businesses, is launching its next cohort in the midst of several new city-backed initiatives intended to boost the wealth and diversity of the Memphis economy.
Nonprofit Neighborhood Christian Centers, which assisted 53,000 people in need last year, will be opening its eighth area location later this summer. Initially, the center will be housed in St. Patrick Presbyterian Church on New Byhalia Road in Collierville, with a target demographic of helping the poor southeast Shelby County.
Community cohesion is the focus for Community Lift as it begins the application process for this year’s round of micro-grants for its Empowerment Fund, now in its second year.
The Lamar Avenue corridor, one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares, will finally get a much-needed overhaul thanks to a $71.2 million U.S. Department of Transportation Infrastructure For Rebuilding America grant to be used for roadway repairs and capacity upgrades.
A new guerilla marketing campaign popping up around town from the Memphis Public Libraries (MPL) is helping to build awareness of the diverse and growing range of free programs offered at local public libraries.
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