At 4:50 p.m. today 100 years ago, Tom Lee became immortal.

It was then that the hard-working roustabout who repaired levees for a Memphis company saw that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sternwheeler, M.E. Norman, was rolling over and headed to the bottom of the Mississippi River.

In that moment, he was given a choice: to continue to end his work day and return home or rush to the boat to pull people from the swirling river current.  He rushed to the sinking ship.  Seventy-two people were aboard and because of Mr. Lee’s rescue, 32 lived drowning. 

He became a national celebrity for his heroism and his bravery, especially considering that he could not swim and that his heroism ignored race: he was African American and all the people he saved were white.

I won’t repeat the inspirational Tom Lee story here.  Michael Finger writes the definitive version in the May issue of Memphis magazine.

In the ensuing decades since the event, Mr. Lee’s rescue has taken on mythic proportions and it is testament to him and to his city that today, his stature has grown to the point that this entire week will be marked by Tom Lee commemorations.

Poetry Inspired by Tom Lee

A favorite of mine is Memphis River Parks Partnership’s Tom Lee Poetry and Spoken Word contest.  It features works by high school students and are about Mr. Lee or how the values he displayed 100 years ago inspired them in their lives. 

This year’s first, second, and third place winners were respectively Katie Phan of Hutchison School, Jericka Self of Central High Schools, and Christian Love of Lausanne Collegiate School. If you ever want to be inspired by the next generation of Memphians, this is the place for it.

Ms. Phan’s poem, What Kills a Wife

she’s not dead yet
but I often find myself writing my mother’s obituary
i see how she flinches every time a man comes near her
the life inside her eyes extinguishing just for a moment but eternally burned into
my mind
whenever my father grows angry, he gives my mother kisses (wounds)
and then he holds her in his arms (the ones that struck her moments before) and
ofers sweet (fake) apologies
mama, is this what is killing you?

i see how she refuses to treat herself with gifts
in fear of proving my father’s diction of gluttony right (gold-digger)
scared of the sneering she would receive from family if she was ever caught
shopping for herself and not her husband
never receiving flowers on any holiday because my father always said
“don’t buy yourself flowers. flowers die anyway, so they’re a waste of (my)
money.”
mama, is this what is killing you?
i see her ashen skin, the result from a restricted diet (controlled by him)
fearful to become undesirable to a man (she doesn’t love)
she thinks i don’t notice her quietly stealing my makeup at midnight (to cover the
bruises)
the way she cinches her waist with a belt
in an attempt to conceal the rolls of flesh that make her imperfect (human)
thinning skin covers sculpted synthetic plastic implants carved into her flesh
so that he doesn’t reject her (perfectly normal) haggish (aging) body
mama, is this what is killing you?

i see the way she buries herself in hypothetical theories
every time he returns home late (“from work”)
reeking of beer and another woman’s perfume
claiming that she’s just “imagining” things (evidence)
busying herself with household chores to distract her
from the blatant answer (divorce)
mama, is this what is killing you?

i see how she listlessly cleans the sheets
in foolish hope that he will choose their (her) bed to sleep in
his lust murders years of (unhappy) marriage
resulting in hushed arguing at night
because they think i am asleep
always ending in the sharp slamming of a door and our truck engine revving
mama, is this what is killing you?

she’s not dead yet
but i often find myself writing my mother’s obituary
or rather my witness statement (at last) to an
uxoricide

Ms. Self’s poem, 2:40am

I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. A little color won’t hurt anything, maybe brown and
only in the back so it can be subtle. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. everyone has
brown now maybe I’ll change it to blonde, so I’ll feel diferent. I chop, I dye, I pierce,
I mark. The phone rings, my sister is gone. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. maybe I’ll
bleach my whole head and color it red. Red was her favorite color. I chop, I dye, I
pierce, I mark. 1 year has gone by, my red is faded my curls are gone what did I do; I
chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. maybe just snip the ends it won’t do any harm so, I
chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. Not short enough, maybe a little more, higher, just a
tad bit higher. perfect. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. Who let me do this? Why did I
cut it so short? I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. I’m starting to not like how I look,
maybe a piercing will fix it! I want something that the world can see so maybe my
nose? I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. I love it. My friends think I look cool. I feel like
myself again. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. Another year pass by, but I still miss my
sister. I’m going to honor her and have her engraved on me forever. I chop, I dye, I
pierce, I mark. The years continue to go by, but I’m still stuck on that day. I can’t
seem to heal. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. I still miss my sister. I want black hair
with blue ends like she had. wait not enough, maybe the same ear piercing as her
as well. I chop, I dye, I pierce, I mark. Maybe it’s time I dye my hair back black, wear
my piercing less, cover my tattoos more. I think I’m satisfied now. until it’s another
year later at 2:40 in the morning and I miss her again. So, what do I do? I chop, I
dye, I pierce, I mark.

Mr. Love’s poem, Crease

I was a piece of paper
Bent and creased
To fill your needs
I was folded into a crane
by a steady, unforgiving hand,
I was pressed into form,
With little regard for my grain,
For the weight I carried,
For who I was
Or would become.
But now I have found my wings
I am ready to leave the nest
And soar
But if you unfold me,
you’ll find creases
Lines that mark where i’ve been,
Reminders of the hand
That unforgivingly folded me
I have been pressed down,
Folded sharply,
And even torn at the edges,
However—I never ripped
And no matter how smooth I have tried to be,
How much I try to forget,
The past still lingers in my fibers.
Yet, even in my creases,
There is still beauty.
In my folds,
There is strength.
And no matter what,
I remain victorious.

At the poetry announcement, there was also the debut of a new short film, Shine On: The Tom Lee Story, by Last Bite Films.  

Today’s poetry ceremony highlights months of programs celebrating Mr. Lee by the River Parks Partnership.  Chief among them was “Keep It Tom Lee,” which urged Memphians to reflect and emulate his legacy of courage, generosity, and humanity.   This has included in Tom Lee Park a series of community all-sings, a walking tour, a partnership with the Memphis Room at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library encouraging research, and a program encouraging people to submit their ideas to receive a special Tom Lee 100 t-shirt about what Memphis would be like if everyone were just one percent more like Tom Lee

 A Celebration In Tom Lee’s Neighborhood

On Saturday, May 10, a special program will be held in Klondike, the location of Mr. Lee’s home at 923 North Mansfield, to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of his heroic rescue and the history and the future of the Klondike neighborhood.  The home on N. Mansfield was purchased for Mr. Lee after a fundraising drive by the Engineers Club of Memphis, which had lost many members in the ship’s sinking.

The program will begin at 10 a.m. at 1396 Jackson Avenue with reflections from his descendants and performances from Memphis Symphony Orchestra, New Ballet Ensemble, Klondike Storytellers & Performers. 

From 11 a.m. until 1 p.m., there will be a pop-up museum with archives of Tom Lee and Klondike.

Why The Park Matters

Many parks across the U.S. bear the name of cities’ prominent citizens, but Tom Lee Park is innovative in the way that it honors a marginalized Black river worker as the inspiration for racial understanding and community-building in a Southern city. 

To achieve this, equity was a founding principle and driver of the park’s design to ensure a welcoming experience in a majority African American city.  It is this personal connection with history and culture and how the courage, generosity, and humanity of one man can inspire a park and a city that are the park’s greatest innovations. 

The reimagined Tom Lee Park was never just about designing a new park; rather, it was about building community that represents the values Mr. Lee displayed and that are the priorities that can bolster modern day Memphis.  It is this intentionality to be a special place where an entire community comes together to live life in public that distinguishes Tom Lee Park.

Tom Lee 100 Proclamation

To kick off Tom Lee 100, the River Parks Partnership requested that Mayor Paul Young issue the following proclamation as context for the year of celebrations:

WHEREAS, On May 8, 1925, Tom Lee became a legend, a true Memphis hero, and a national celebrity when he saved the lives of 32 people whose steamer M.E. Norman overturned near Memphis; the 39-year-old, who could not even swim, was working on a sunny spring morning as a jack-of-all-trades doing routine levee work in Arkansas below Memphis for a local company; and

WHEREAS, The M.E. Norman was a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers vessel converted to special use on May 8, 1925, for the first annual meeting in Memphis of the Mid-South Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers; the M.E. Norman cast a formidable and powerful presence on the Mississippi River – a sternwheeler, less than a year old carrying tons of fuel, 114 feet long with twin smokestacks and two decks – departing Memphis for an inspection tour of river projects with another Corps of Engineers’ steamer, the Choctaw; and

WHEREAS, Although waves created by the Choctaw sending water over the lower deck of the M.E. Norman should have raised concerns, the inspection continued on, docking on the Arkansas side of Pinckney Landing to view revetment work before the steamers turned back north for the two-hour trip back to Memphis; Tom Lee was doing the same, leaving Helena, Arkansas, on Zev, his small wooden skiff, and far ahead, he could barely make out the smoke of the two steamers, but his small craft quickly motored past them but saw that something was dangerously wrong with the M.E. Norman, which was wrestling with the swift current before its rudder failed; in seconds, it rolled over, trapping dozens of people in the screened-in cabin and hurling more into the murky water before sinking to the bottom of the river; and

WHEREAS, In a matter of minutes, 72 men, women, and children were at the mercy of the surprisingly cold river, and faced with the option of continuing on home, Tom Lee turned around the Zev and raced into the maelstrom where heavy suits and dresses were making swimming almost impossible and few passengers had on life preservers; he navigated his small craft expertly between the victims in the water and filled his boat with eight passengers; and

WHEREAS, He took the shivering survivors from four rescue missions to a sandbar where he built a fire from driftwood to warm them, returning again and again to the river to rescue more, eventually pulling 32 people from death; news of the tragedy reached Memphis and by the time the Choctaw docked, a thousand people were present; the White survivors told reporters how they owed their lives to a mysterious African American man who appeared from nowhere to save them from the turbulent river; Tom Lee was nowhere to be found there because he was still on the Zev helping with the search for bodies; and

WHEREAS, Tom Lee’s exploits were reported internationally and he gained heroic stature in Memphis, and among the accolades bestowed on him was the renaming of a park on the riverfront in his honor that today has been transformed into one of America’s great riverfront parks, Tom Lee Park, which in keeping with his legacy is dedicated to his mythic model of courage, generosity, and humanity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Paul Young, Mayor of City of Memphis, do hereby proclaim 2025 in City of Memphis as

TOM LEE 100

and join with Memphis River Parks Partnership for a year of events, commemorations, and celebrations in his honor so his brave deeds are never forgotten and urge our citizens to draw inspiration for One Memphis from Tom Lee’s values on a day when faced with the option of ignoring the plight of others, he risked his own life to save the lives of his fellow Memphians.

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