by John Branston
New accusations from longtime Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton are the latest in a series of only-in-Memphis moments that leave residents shaking their heads at the Bluff City’s uncanny penchant for self-inflicted wounds.
The relationship between Herenton and civil rights attorney Richard Fields goes back to 1969, when, as principal and teacher, they joined a school boycott called “Black Mondays” to get black representatives on the school board. When Herenton was elected mayor in 1991 by just 142 votes, Fields was one of only two prominent white citizens to support him publicly.
But in a bizarre turnabout, Herenton and a former topless bar waitress charged last week that Fields, along with unnamed wealthy businessmen and an FBI agent, concocted a scheme to trap the mayor in a sex and corruption scandal that would force him not to seek a fifth consecutive term as mayor in the October election.
In a press conference at City Hall, Herenton said, “I stand before you today as a victim of a politically motivated conspiracy promulgated by a group of Memphis citizens.” The mayor, whose towering stature and longevity have made him a Memphis icon, called for black voter unity and a U.S. Justice Department investigation of Fields and other “snakes” out to get him.
The alleged scheme involved getting Gwen Smith, a young woman Fields had represented in a criminal forgery case in Nashville in 2005, to seduce and secretly tape the mayor, then convince a federal prison inmate to falsely state that he paid bribes to Herenton to secure a liquor license. But Smith turned on Fields instead, breaking her story last week in a front-page article in The Commercial Appeal. Last Friday she was returned to Nashville and jailed on charges of violating her probation.
Fields, 59, is well known in Memphis for his political activism and representation of the NAACP. He has been married four times, each time to a black woman. He hitched his wagon to Herenton’s star for most of his career, representing the mayor in his divorce, in a lawsuit by a police officer, and in another lawsuit by a teacher with whom the mayor was romantically involved when he was school superintendent.
But Herenton fatigue has settled in over Memphis, and in March Fields went to the mayor’s office to share with him a poll he had taken. The poll showed the mayor losing to any one of a number of potential candidates. Fields says they met cordially for more than three hours, but that Herenton told him “he didn’t believe in polls.” Herenton’s account of the meeting is different. At his press conference, the mayor mocked Fields and said his supposed concern for his legacy was bogus. Then he called him a snake.
Fields says he’s “distressed” and puzzled by the mayor.
“I get to disagree,” he says. “That’s the kind of relationship we have.”
And he denies Smith’s charges that he exploited her sexually and politically. “She wanted to go to the FBI so she could get a prison-time cut for her boyfriend who was supporting her,” he says.
Smith, a cousin of one of Fields’ ex-wives, is a single mother of three and former student at Christian Brothers University in Memphis.
The point of the secret mayoral seduction, beyond the obvious headline value, is unclear. Herenton has long been a divorced bachelor. At any rate, it apparently didn’t happen, and Fields has now been cast as the mastermind of an office coup backed by the FBI and Memphis businessmen.
“When Ms. Smith reported all of these activities to me and local law enforcement officials, she had in her possession a supposedly ‘secret and sealed’ indictment against Ralph Lunati and others that she obtained from Fields and federal authorities,” Herenton said in his letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Lunati owns topless clubs in Memphis, which has, according to expert testimony in a law-enforcement crackdown, some of the wildest strip clubs in the country.
The accusations are, of course, sordid, but Memphis has been primed for this sort of thing. A few years ago, Herenton suggested that a City Council member might want to step outside and duke it out with him. Wisely, he did not. The former Golden Gloves boxer sparred with Joe Frazier in a goofy charity bout last year.
On a more serious note, Memphis is ground zero for the Tennessee Waltz political corruption trials. All of the six local public officials who have been federally indicted or convicted are black, as are two Memphis City Council members indicted in December in a separate federal undercover operation. Former state Sen. John Ford, uncle of former U.S. Congressman Harold Ford Jr., was convicted in May, and his brother Edmund is scheduled to go to trial later this year. The population of Memphis is about 63 percent black.
Raising the temperature even higher, Herenton last week said, “There are those in this community who would like to see me removed by any means.” Without identifying anyone, he then said, “They might resort to what happened to Dr. [Martin Luther] King in Memphis.” The civil rights leader was slain at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. Police Director Larry Godwin says he’s unaware of any recent death threats against the mayor.
The sad thing is that, for much of his 16-year tenure as mayor, most Memphians—including the business establishment he scorned last week—saw the 6-foot-6 Herenton as a racial unifier with a regal presence, an ego to match and a self-described divine calling to be mayor. And, of course, he was not a Ford. His 1991 election by a 142-vote margin was the closest mayoral contest in city history, and he has been comforably reelected three times since then.
But he has raised just $1,650 this year to add to his campaign war chest of just over $500,000. A couple of polls taken this spring showed his support below 20 percent, but that number is ludicrously low. Indeed, it was the belief that Herenton probably cannot be defeated at the polls that led to alternative strategies before the last bridges were burned.
In October, Herenton faces at least two challengers, including Herman Morris, the former head of Memphis Light, Gas & Water whom he fired four years ago, and Carol Chumney, a maverick member of the Memphis City Council. Herenton is contemptuous of both of them, calling Morris, who is black, a “boy” in camp with disgruntled whites. Last week, saying he was speaking specifically to black Memphians, Herenton said, “We have always been a community that could be divided.” But this time, he vowed, “divide and conquer ain’t gonna work.”
He may be right. His appeal to religion, racial solidarity and fear should energize his base and make his reelection chances better than ever, especially in a crowded field. The mayoral election is winner-take-all. A federal judge struck down the runoff provision in 1991. One of the lawyers who argued against it—and, as it turned out, helped Herenton to win with 49.4 percent of the vote—was Richard Fields.
(John Branston writes or The Memphis Flyer and is the author of the book Rowdy Memphis.)
