In the early hours of April 28, 2025, fire consumed Clayborn Temple — and with it, something sacred to Memphis, to the nation, and to all of us who believe in the unfinished work of justice.
I woke to the news with a heartbreak that goes beyond words.
For me, Clayborn Temple is not just a place written about in history books. It is a place woven into my life.
I have walked its broken floors. I have stood beneath its fragile roof and prayed for its survival. I have sat at tables, worked across divides, and dared to hope that what was once torn by segregation could be stitched into something new.
And today, as smoke rises from its ashes, I feel the weight of what we have lost — and what we must now carry forward.
In 2003, I found myself standing at the crumbling threshold of Clayborn Temple for the first time.
I was serving on the board of LeMoyne-Owen College, a historic Black institution fighting for its very survival.
We faced the urgent threat of financial insolvency unless we could raise one million dollars. As head of the development committee, I carried that weight to then-Mayor Willie Herenton and Robert Lipscomb, the director of Housing and Community Development — both proud graduates of LeMoyne-Owen.
Robert listened carefully, then said:
“We have a million dollars set aside in our budget — but it’s earmarked for Clayborn Temple.”
He paused, then added, “If you can raise another million to help Clayborn, we’ll release these funds for the college.”
I didn’t hesitate. I said yes.
Before I even made it home, I drove straight to Clayborn Temple.
When I stepped out of my car and looked up at the battered facade, I saw it —etched into the stone above the door:
Second Presbyterian Church, Organized 1844.
In that moment, memory and history collided.
Second Presbyterian is the white congregation that occupied the church before moving to East Memphis, giving rise to Clayborn Temple in 1949.
I knew the story of the subsequent kneel-ins — the years-long movement where Black students from LeMoyne-Owen and white students from what is now Rhodes College had quietly, persistently challenged church segregation, trained in nonviolence by James Lawson himself.
And I knew the pastor of Second Presbyterian Church at that time, Sandy Willson — through an unexpected connection. His family had roots in my own small hometown in Iowa. We had shared summers, unknowingly tied by something deeper than geography.
Standing there beneath the weathered stone, it felt less like coincidence and more like a calling.
I called a dear friend, attorney Marty Regan, and together we made an appointment to meet with Sandy Willson.
I told him plainly:
“With a million-dollar gift, we could right history with a stroke of the pen.”
Sandy listened.
He took it to the elders of his church, who, while hesitant to simply write a check, were open to imagining a new partnership — planting a new church that could share sacred ground downtown.
It was not easy.
For nearly three years, Marty appeared pro bono in Environmental Court, working alongside Judge Larry Potter and Memphis Fire officials to prevent the building from being condemned.
The structure was fragile — its exterior walls visibly bowing toward the street, creating a public safety concern. What we didn’t want to say out loud, but all of us understood, was that Clayborn Temple could collapse.
That urgency was only underscored by a tragedy then still fresh in Memphis memory: the 2002 collapse of New Greater Hyde Park Missionary Baptist Church, where falling masonry killed four people — a pastor’s family — sitting in a parked minivan. The roof system had failed in a building structurally similar to Clayborn.
Through collective effort, we raised over $500,000 to fund a professional engineering plan and install interior steel trusses. These trusses secured the roof and stabilized the bowing walls — giving Clayborn a literal, and symbolic, second chance.
The dream of a shared congregation didn’t come to fruition. But the building was still standing.
A fragile victory.
A fragile hope.
And yet, from that fragile beginning, something extraordinary began to take root.
Under the visionary and steadfast leadership of Anasa Troutman, Clayborn Temple was no longer just a building saved from collapse — it was becoming a living cultural center.
She poured her heart into reimagining what Clayborn could be: a performance space, a gallery, a museum, and a gathering place for meetings, celebrations, and community healing.
I supported that vision for as long as I could, until health challenges required me to step back. But her leadership — her clarity, creativity, and devotion — carried it forward.
And so, Clayborn Temple is not simply a historic building.
It is a sanctuary where ordinary people did extraordinary things.
In its basement, sanitation workers — the very ones who would carry the “I Am a Man” signs — gathered in weary determination, organizing for dignity and survival.
From its steps, marchers set out toward justice, carrying the weight of history on their backs and the hope of freedom in their hearts.
It was here that movements were born, songs were lifted, strategies were shaped — and it was from this sacred place that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood with the striking workers, before he was taken from us.
Clayborn Temple was — and remains — a beating heart in the long, unfinished struggle for civil rights.
For the Black community in Memphis, it is hallowed ground.
But it belongs to all of us who believe that freedom must be fought for, generation after generation.
Over the years, nearly every protest I joined, every march I walked in, began at Clayborn Temple.It was not just a landmark. It was a gathering place for courage, a home for collective hope. To walk those steps was to step into a current larger than myself — a river of grief, resilience, faith, and righteous anger, carrying forward those who came before.
To lose it to fire is to feel a wound reopen.
But we must remember:
The fire can destroy wood and stone.
It cannot destroy what Clayborn stands for. That spirit lives on — if we choose to carry it.
Today, as we grieve the loss of Clayborn Temple’s walls and rafters, we must remember that what made it holy cannot be burned away.
It was never just the wood or the stone.
It was the people — the hands that built the signs, the feet that marched through fear, the voices that rose together in songs of protest and prayer.
That spirit does not die.
In the ashes of Clayborn Temple, a charge rises again: To remember, to rebuild, and to recommit ourselves to the work that is not yet finished.
I do not pretend that my voice alone can carry the full weight of this loss. I am only one witness, one thread woven into the living tapestry of Memphis and its long struggle toward justice.
But I offer my voice now because I have walked those broken floors, prayed under that fragile roof, and stood beside those who knew — in their bones — that freedom is a fight worth everything.
And I believe with all my heart that out of these ashes, something sacred can rise again.
Clayborn Temple was, and still is, a testament:
That even in the face of hatred, fear, and destruction — love, dignity, and courage endure.
The fire has taken the building.
It has not taken the dream.
We shall overcome.
Even now.
Even here.
