A Memphis Girl's Thoughts on MLK Jr. Day

Being born on April 4th in Memphis, Tennessee, how could I not want social justice?

I remember my dad taking me to walk outside of the Lorraine Motel when I was very little. I knew the history, and I knew all about Dr. King’s assassination. I’m sure that every Memphis child grows up hearing the full story. My dad was 6-years-old when it happened, and he has some memories of the sadness and the chaos. When people visit Memphis, they tend to say the same thing: It’s like stepping back in time. Not just at the National Civil Rights Museum, which adjoins the Lorraine Motel. Not just at the landmarks, like Beale Street or the Peabody Hotel. The entire city seems frozen, held back. It’s intentional.

“Why is equality so assiduously avoided? Why does white America delude itself, and how does it rationalize the evil it retains?” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tennessee is a Republican-led state (read: white supremacist-led). Memphis, a city in the western corner of the state, has been punished by those in charge for the crime of being too Black. Memphis is the largest majority-Black city in the country, it is one of the most segregated cities in the country, and it is one of the most dangerous in the world. This is all by design. They consistently block any measures to curb gun violence, cut and prevent funding to our schools, and oust lawmakers who try to advocate for us. The racists in charge are still riding the high of assassinating Dr. King in 1968, and they want us to self-destruct.

“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At 9-years-old, I became passionate about health law. I was chronically ill, mostly thanks to mold exposure in substandard housing in South Memphis when I was a toddler. I was on TennCare, Tennessee’s version of Medicaid, which covers many of the children in Memphis (36.3% are living in poverty). I learned very early that every time a Tennessee Republican called for cutting Medicaid funding, they did not think that my life had value.

At 13-years-old, I was given an award at the National Civil Rights Museum by Mayor A C Wharton, Jr. — the first Black mayor of Shelby County, where Memphis resides — for an essay about antiracism. At 14-years-old, I won another award in Nashville for an essay criticizing state leaders for wanting to cut Medicaid funding. At 18-years-old, I attended Christian Brothers University, a small, private school in Memphis, where I studied psychology and worked in pediatric research at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. At 24-years-old, I attended the University of Memphis as both a law student and a Master of Public Health student, and I worked in research on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and in the Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic in Le Bonheur.

At 27-years-old, I left Memphis.

“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My relationship with Memphis has become complicated over the years. The first thorn was my leaving. I received a prestigious fellowship in Washington, DC after graduating from Memphis Law. Everyone was proud. I remember my dad pulling me aside after my graduation, and he told me, “My parents could never imagine having a granddaughter who is a lawyer.” My grandfather was born in 1900, and he was a sharecropper, the job most people only know about in history books. But my father saw that firsthand as he grew up in a small house with no running water just outside of Memphis, over the bridge into Marion, Arkansas. I’m three generations removed from slavery, and I became a DC lawyer. I feel the weight of that every day.

But I also felt shame in leaving, and I still do. I feel like I left my home behind. I feel like I left my city in the hands of monsters in the state who want nothing more than to see where I came from crumble. I told myself that I was going to make change, and while I came to DC during Trump’s first presidency, I said that this hardship was temporary. I said that if I just learn and work and do what I am supposed to do, I can make something of myself and help others. I said a lot of things, but I didn’t prepare for how difficult this would be.

The second reason that my relationship with Memphis is complicated is because on December 3, 2017, my little brother, Jonathan Charles Booker, was murdered. He was walking to his car, and he was shot and killed. He didn’t even know the people shooting. The news described him as an “innocent bystander,” but not until after I talked on the phone with reporters less than 24 hours after finding out my brother was dead. I know how the media treats Black victims, and I wasn’t going to let them do that to Jon.

Losing Jon made it painful to go back home, and it still hurts. I know that I can never live there again. The trauma and the grief is too heavy, and again, I feel a lot of shame in this. How many people have lost loved ones to violence but don’t have the choice to run away? Members of my own family still live there. My parents are forced to drive around and have a constant reminder of Jon from where he was born to where he died, coincidentally, in almost the same place. He was born at what natives call “the Med,” but is now Regional One Hospital. He was murdered about a block from the hospital, in the Edge District, not far from Sun Studios where I used to take people when I was a tour guide in the city. But I can never move back home, knowing that my brother was murdered by the design that the powers that be put in place. I feel ashamed that I could leave but Jon never can.

We played Mahalia Jackson’s “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” at Jon’s funeral.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now because I’ve been to the mountaintop.” - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Seventeen days after Jon was murdered, the city removed the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, from what is now renamed Health Sciences Park. That park is just a few steps from where Jon died. It’s a cruel joke that the statue was still looming in that spot when my brother was gunned down nearby. But it’s also a reminder of how hatred can tear something apart so quickly. Every day, I just hope that my love for my brother and for my community is stronger.

Today, I sit in my home, a short distance from the 2025 presidential inauguration, and I think about Memphis. I think about Dr. King. I am trying to ready myself for the fight that is coming because I know from experience what happens when people who falsely believe in their own supremacy ascend to power. I know what they do to punish and dismantle and destroy a community. I know what it’s like to grow up at the site of marches and rallies and then be promptly forgotten and left to suffer alone. Let my city and its story be a lesson right now, a testimony of what we must do to push back.

Please don’t forget about Memphis.