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211 Conclusion For black Memphians, the Brown v. Board of Education ruling was a call to action. A new generation of leaders, including Maxine and Vasco Smith, Jesse Turner Sr., A. W. Willis Jr., and Russell and Laurie Sugarmon, joined Benjamin Hooks and H. T. Lockard in giving new life to the black freedom struggle in Memphis. With no appointed successor to Crump, a leadership vacuum existed in the city, and they took advantage of this environment to pursue political power and civil rights.1 They joined the Bluff City and Shelby County Council of Civic Clubs and the local NAACP branch, which rose in membership from a low of 818 in 1954 to 2,418 in 1959. While these leaders supported lawsuits seeking the desegregation of Memphis, they engaged in sustained political mobilization as well. Black voter registration increased to 57,109 in 1959—more than eight times the number in 1951. The Reverend W. Herbert Brewster, the longtime follower of Robert R. Church Jr., contributed to these political efforts by staging a massive religious pageant to register hundreds of black voters in 1958. Memphis also became the center of the development of rock and roll, with Elvis Presley making his first hit recordings at Sun Studio in 1954. He had been inspired by the music he heard on Beale Street, including at the East Trigg Baptist Church, where Reverend Brewster preached. Sun Studio, with African Americans and whites recording , foreshadowed the integration that would occur in Memphis over the next decade.2 In the 1959 election, four black men made bids for public office as a unity slate called the Volunteer Ticket. African Americans represented one-third of the vote. Russell B. Sugarmon Jr., Benjamin Hooks, the Reverend Roy Love of Mount Nebo Baptist Church, and the Reverend Henry Bunton of Mount olive Christian Methodist Episcopal Church made up the ticket. Hooks had been ordained as a Baptist minister in 1956, while Sugarmon had a law degree from 212 RIVER oF HoPE Harvard and was a Korean War veteran. Because the University of Tennessee Law School had refused to accept Sugarmon because he was African American, the state of Tennessee had paid his Harvard expenses. Love, a former day laborer and popular local minister who headed a working-class congregation, had nearly won a spot on the school board in 1955. As head of the Ministers and Citizens League, formed that year at the Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ in order to help increase the number of black Memphians registered to vote, Bunton had supported Reverend Love’s campaign. A World War II veteran, Bunton had arrived in Memphis in 1953 with a prestigious graduate degree from Denver’s Iliff School of Theology. He was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights organization formed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. following the Montgomery bus boycott.3 In 1959, because each Volunteer Ticket candidate faced three or more white opponents, a unified black vote and split white vote could result in victory. The Volunteer Ticket organization formed for the campaign; its ward and precinct network included members of the Shelby County Democratic Club (the black Democratic organization) and the Lincoln League. The “thinking heart” behind the Volunteer Ticket, Lee took part in every stage of the campaign.4 J. E. Walker had died the year before, so his son, A. Maceo Walker, also a successful businessman, cochaired the steering committee with Lee. Maxine Smith and other women made up the majority of the grassroots workers supporting the candidates.5 More than a political campaign, the endeavor was a milestone in the freedom struggle of black Memphians and generated widespread interest. “What Negroes have in mind is to fight until hell freezes over and if necessary skate across on ice to freedom ,” Lieutenant Lee proclaimed at the ticket’s largest political rally.6 Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in Memphis on behalf of the Volunteer Ticket, as did the Little Rock civil rights leader Daisy Bates. In addition to extensive local press coverage, the campaign received attention from national media, including the New York Times, the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Washington Post.7 When election day arrived, a record number of African Americans and whites cast ballots. White Memphians had countermobilized against the candidates, especially Sugarmon, given that he was running for the most powerful position and had the greatest chance of winning .8 All the Volunteer Ticket candidates came in second. Nonethe- [3...

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