Safe Tent Offers Respite at 2018 Mempho Music Fest

In a new partnership with Memphis Says NO MORE, concert-goers at the 2018 Mempho music festival at Shelby Farms Park Oct. 6 and 7 will be reminded about the meaning of consent and harassment and guided to a “safe tent” should they need help.

Festival organizers reached out to MSNM coordinator Deborah Clubb in May about providing training for staff and security on sexual harassment and organizing counselors, and a safe space to be used by any festival attendees who might need assistance.

Jason Shulman with Mempho had read and heard about harassment and assault of female concert goers at other events around the country and wanted to be pro-active, to assure a good experience for all at the Shelby Farms event.

With special signage around the grounds, counselors from the Shelby County Crime Victims Center/Rape Crisis Center and volunteers from various other partner agencies, MSNM will be present to make Memphis concert goers aware of ways to stay safe and respectful and where to go for aid should something happen.

“We are excited by this new opportunity and new partnership,” Clubb said. “The age demographic of music festival audience is exactly the group we want to reach with awareness about the meaning of consent, about the impact of unwanted touch and the definition of assault and harassment. To be at the event, helping train security personnel and then standing by with professional counselors and support, is just exactly what we want to be doing.”

Clubb and partners with the Memphis Sexual Assault Kit Task Force, which fostered MSNM, hope this outreach leads to additional opportunities to take sexual abuse awareness and prevention into other major music festival events.

Women of Achievement Historians Share How and Why Women’s Stories Matter Nov. 16

A panel of Memphis’ leading writers of women’s history will gather on Nov. 16 for the 2018 Women of Achievement Changemakers’ Symposium.

The symposium will launch a celebration of the 35 ^th year of Women of Achievement, the local awards program which has honored and published the histories of 257 women, the Yellow Fever Martyrs and Shelby County Suffragists since its founding in 1984.

The symposium panel will be held at the Hooks Central Library and moderated by Dr. Gail Murray, retired from Rhodes College and author of Throwing Off the Cloak of Privilege: White Southern Women Activists in the Civil Rights Era. The panel will feature Memphis historians who have previously been honored as Women of Achievement, including Dr. Beverly Bond, author of several books on African-American women of Memphis and 2012 WA honoree for Vision.

The event is free, handicap accessible and will open at 6:30 p.m. with a reception.

Information on joining WA, nominating women for the 2019 awards and participating in 2019 selection committees also will be shared at the symposium. The deadline for nominations is Jan. 15, 2019. The nomination form is available here.

To read essays about previous WA honorees, go here.

VOTE! It’s Your Right!

Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement Sept. 29 at Lindenwood

Scarlett Lewis, mother of Jesse Lewis, a six-year-old murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, will speak at Lindenwood Christian Church on Sept. 29 at 6 p.m.

She will share her experience and explain her solution to the epidemic of school shootings in our country. The Choose Love Enrichment Program is a free Pre-K through 12 ^th grade social and emotional learning program that gives students the knowledge, attitude and skills they need to choose love in any situation.

Her presentation on Sept. 29 is free and handicap accessible.

We encourage you to read this essay by Mrs. Lewis.