Soulsville is one piece of the greater South Memphis area and is arguably one of greatest neighborhoods for fostering music talent. Aretha Franklin, Maurice White, David Porter, Memphis Slim, and Memphis Minnie called Soulsville home while dozens of others made their mark on music history at the Stax and Royal recording studios. While the original Stax studio was demolished, its legacy lives on in the Stax Museum of American Soul and Stax Music Academy. Soulsville is also home to LeMoyne Owen College, Memphis’ only historically Black college.
The national Urban Land Institute was in town last week to study parks in South Memphis. They presented their findings in a public meeting that explored the role these parks play in neighborhood revitalization and how to activate them with limited resources.
High Ground's new Community Contributors program takes passionate Memphians and gives them the skills to find and report stories that acknowledge their neighborhoods' struggles but focus on their resilience.
The 5th annual Soulsville USA Festival on Oct. 19 drew several thousand to McLemore Avenue to celebrate the neighborhood's history and legends.
Ellen Roberds and Nibaruta Fidel with Play Where You Stay talk soccer, competition and how to make the game fun and accessible for all kids in any neighborhood, regardless of financial need.
Continuing a series on homeownership, Tennessee Housing Development Agency's Ralph Perrey and United Housing's Amy Schaftein talk down payment assistance programs, homebuyer education and other initiatives for Mid-South families.
275 Food Project is working towards a $1.5 billion reinvestment in local food. They're connecting farmers to buyers, reactivating spaces and building a container restaurant in Soulsville. Now High Ground takes a first look at their Ground Up fellowship.
The Memphis Medical District Collaborative’s workforce development program connects residents to training, education and employment opportunities in and around the Medical District.
On June 3, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris hosted his first prom. More than 400 seniors citizens packed the Stax Museum for food, music and dancing. And to see who'd win king and queen, of course.
This two part series explores how race built Memphis. From a newly discovered 1930s redlining map to recent lawsuits, discriminatory housing policies have kept Black families from home ownership and Black neighborhoods from thriving.
On S1E13 of the On the Ground Podcast, Roshun Austin of The Works, Inc. and Austin Harrison of Neighborhood Preservation Inc. examine a redlining map from the 1930s, its implications for modern-day Memphis and local strategies to breakdown housing inequality 85 years after redlining was introduced and 50 years since it was outlawed.
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