Soul(ed) Out: A sociohistorical counternarrative concerning the processes of education reform and gentrification in South Memphis, Tennessee

Henry was born and raised in South Memphis—the “Black world” of Memphis (D’Army, n.d., para. 1)—and is now retired after a decades-long career as an educator. He recalls early memories living in LeMoyne Gardens with pride and joy. Additionally, he insists his schooling experiences in segregated schools in South Memphis were superior to those of his white counterparts. A proud graduate of a legacy school in Memphis—Booker T. Washington High School—Henry has witnessed his community change drastically over the years. Henry’s childhood neighborhood, and one of the schools he fondly remembers because of its dedicated teachers—the Porter School—no longer exist. Henry’s story is not the exception in South Memphis. In this counternarrative, I interviewed Henry and seven other participants ranging from longtime community members, a Memphis musician, a charter school founder, and a Memphis Housing Authority employee to understand the effects of education reform and gentrification on the cultural traditions and communities of Black residents in South Memphis. In addition to qualitative in-depth interviews, I utilized community asset maps from participants to help map the changes in the community over time. To situate the counternarrative, I implemented a sociohistorical analysis of the community foundations of South Memphis as a counter to the network ethnography that displays the intentional efforts of neoliberal policymakers, reformers, philanthropists, and organizations to undermine, erase, and co-opt Black cultural traditions. Furthermore, I developed a conceptual framework, Soul(ed) Out, within critical race theory, to analyze macro-level educational and community policies that have had devastating effects on historic Black communities. Soul(ed) Out utilizes three theoretical tools that were formed based on codes from interview data: Pride in the Blues, Preservation as Gospel, and Rap Demo(lition). This study centers the cultural traditions and communities of South Memphis built with pride by Black people while drawing a connection between education reform and gentrification with a critique of neoliberalism.