Things We Like About Memphis: MLK50

Last week, in the wake of a few NBA players’ angst about hotel rooms, this blog’s attention shifted to the heading of “things we like most about Memphis.”  The first of these periodic posts was last Thursday with the column about Protect Our Aquifer, and today, it’s about MLK50 – Justice Through Journalism.  The threads that hold both of them together are a passion about the city, their mission to mobilize change, and sharing facts that would otherwise be left unrevealed.

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Around 10 years ago, I accompanied Wendi Thomas as she pitched a local philanthropy for funding in support of her vision of a media site dedicated to the values of its namesake, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The meeting, like others in Memphis, did not go well, and ultimately, it was organizations and individuals outside the city who grasped the ambition of her vision and allowed her to create MLK50 with essentially a staff of one – herself.

Today, in only nine years, it has a staff which rivals the size of some mid-sized city daily newspapers and it has a widespread reputation for its excellence which led to national attention and funding.  Wendi was a former columnist at The Commercial Appeal, where her provocative columns challenged conventional thinking and attracted racist hate mail.  

When Wendi set out to create a new kind of newsroom, she wasn’t trying to improve the margins of local journalism. Rather, she was in fact trying to redefine its purpose.  She envisioned a newsroom willing to confront inconvenient truths, identify the forces that produce them, and stand with the people who are most affected.

The result – MLK50: Justice Through Journalism – has become one of the clearest examples in the country of what happens when journalism is rooted not in access to power, but in people whose voices are too rarely heard in mainstream journalism.

 Today, MLK50 is not just a successful nonprofit newsroom, but the fulfillment of the vision Wendi described as she sought money for her start-up – a vision of a journalism that centered on the lives of low-wage workers and families, confronts the structural inequality that defines Memphis, and produces momentum for tangible change.

It was a compelling vision then and now, it turns out that it was essential.

A Different Starting Point

Generally speaking, local journalism operates from the top down. It covers institutions – City Hall, corporate leaders, and major nonprofits – and frames stories through City Council meetings, public meetings and announcements. When the struggles of everyday people appeared, it was usually as a reaction, anecdote, or background.

Wendi’s starting point was different: What if journalism started with the people most affected by policy decisions rather than the people making them? What if the newsroom treated low-income Memphians not as problems to be solved, but as experts in their own lived experiences?

This meant that MLK50 would not chase incremental updates from officialdom. Instead, it would investigate the institutional racism shaping people’s lives – wages, health care, housing, justice, and education – and explain it in ways that were rigorously researched and accessibly written.

In other words, the MLK50 newsroom does not simply describe and report on inequality but interrogates it.

Rooted in the Unfinished Work of Dr. King

The name MLK50 was never just symbolic.

As Wendi has said, Dr. King’s legacy is too often reduced to a handful of bromides that are even quoted by people who stand for all that he was against.  This sanitized version left out the full meaning of Dr. King’s most challenging mandates for action.  That’s why MLK50 is not just inspired by his words but instead it is an extension of his unfinished work which asked: Who benefits from the current system? Who is left behind? And what will it take to build something more just?

MLK50’s award-winning investigative reporting – often in collaboration with highly regarded national partners – sets out to answer those questions.  Its work how Methodist Le Bonheur Health Care pursued aggressive lawsuits against low-income patients, including its own employees, while only 1% received financial assistance from the nonprofit, religious hospital.

The reporting didn’t just inform; it forced change. Policies were revised, lawsuits halted, and millions of dollars in debt were forgiven in evidence of what Wendi meant by “justice through journalism.”

The same approach powered coverage of wages, evictions, public benefits, juvenile justice, and education.

For Memphis, there’s no argument that it’s a kind of journalism that fills a critical gap.  It has received dozens of awards in nine years – from National Association of Black Journalists, Gerald Loeb Award, Society of Professional Journalists, and Report for America.  That’s not even including awards received by Wendi – Nieman Foundation, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Selden Ring Award, I.F. Stone Medal, and more.

Why This Matters Now

When placed in the context of the crisis in local journalism in the U.S., what’s most remarkable is not that MLK50 has survived but it has thrived as a result of the shared leadership of Co-Executive Directors Adrienne Johnston Martin who leads the editorial side and Ayanna Johnson Watkins who leads development and operations. 

The Pivot Fund described it this way: “Community-rooted newsrooms have always been among the most creative and resourceful in the field. They’re used to doing a lot with a little. They question traditional assumptions because they actually know their audiences. They are trusted by their communities, and that trust shapes not just their journalism, but how they design leadership itself.”

Wendi recognized early that MLK50 would require new funding models, new relationships with audiences, and new definitions of success. By operating as a nonprofit newsroom, MLK50 aligns its mission with public service rather than profit margins, and that structure allows it to pursue stories whose value is measured not in clicks but impact on the community.

Most importantly, it allows the newsroom to stay focused on its core purpose: exposing injustice and amplifying the voices of those most affected by it.  In that way, it’s both a mirror of the city and a catalyst for progress. 

A Lasting Fulfillment—and an Ongoing Challenge

To say that MLK50 fulfills Wendi Thomas’s vision is not to suggest that the work is complete. If anything, the newsroom’s success – and its continuing ambition – underscores how much remains to be done.

Poverty rates remain high.  Child poverty rates are immoral. The economy is underperforming.  Economic mobility is limited. Disparities in health, education, justice, and housing persist.

What MLK50 demonstrates for Memphis is that journalism can play a meaningful role in addressing its most daunting challenges. It can surface hidden dynamics, hold powerful actors accountable, and equip communities with the information they need to advocate for themselves.

It is a distinct, and vital, niche in a city where daily journalism seems to report on white Memphis and on upper middle class issues.  

In the end, the significance of MLK50 comes down to a simple reality: Memphis needs institutions that tell the truth about the city.  MLK50 is one of those vital institutions.

It ensures that the struggles of low-wage workers are not invisible. It challenges systems that perpetuate inequality. It honors the full legacy of Dr. King by continuing the work he began. And it proves that journalism, when done with clarity and conviction, can be a powerful and provocative force for change.

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