What It Means to be from Memphis

“Home” means different things to different people: it can be the people you know from your hometown or where you live today. But for me home will always be the place where I was born and raised. I left Memphis to attend college at Baylor University in Waco,Texas, then again for an internship in the south of France during graduate school, and once again to work in Atlanta for five years. Each time I returned, I realized that I belonged back in the town where my grandfather had sold Elvis his first pink Cadillac convertible.

I grew up during the 1970s and ‘80s, a time when Memphis was still healing from the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the tense race relations that ensued. Then Elvis Presley’s death in 1977 transformed the mansion at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard into a destination for music lovers the world around. This was also a time when people didn’t spend much time downtown other than for work during the week, or to catch a Greyhound bus headed out of town, or to attend the annual “Memphis in May” barbecue cooking contest or the Beale Street music festival.

Despite its flaws and its sometimes undiscerning affection for a troubled heritage - it was once, as locals will remind you, the cotton capital of the world - Memphis held a certain Southern charm that it maintains to this day. After all, Memphis is the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll. For so many years, Memphis was a mecca for musicians like Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Otis Redding, and Carl Perkins who gravitated to Sun Studios or Stax Records to cut the next big hit record.

Growing up, I didn’t fully appreciate the musical history and heritage that Memphis embodied. It just seemed a part of life there. My grandfather owned a car dealership across the street from Sun Studios. My father knew Elvis at Humes High School. And I worked as a tour guide at Graceland while home from college each summer. It was fun to lead tour groups of celebrities, dignitaries, and overseas tour groups who may have needed an interpreter, but it still never ceased to amaze me that people traveled so far to see the domicile of this legend, just fifteen minutes away from my parents’ house.

After graduate school at the University of Memphis, I moved to Atlanta for a new job at a large corporation. Like Memphis, Atlanta is a charming “Southern belle” of many great attributes, but on a much larger scale: Atlanta’s population of just over four million is four times the size of Memphis. Those who live in Atlanta love to support professional sports teams like the Braves and the Falcons, they relish the cultural offerings at places like the High Museum of Art and the Atlanta History Museum, and many of them work for large companies, such as CNN and Coca-Cola. But ask anyone who’s spent any amount of time in Atlanta, and you’ll probably hear something negative about the incessant traffic jams, the increasing level of smog during the summer months, or crime in the Buckhead bar and restaurant district, a thriving, crowded nightlife area. I’m no exception. Much as I liked living there, Atlanta never really felt like home to me.

It’s a truism that life is so much easier to navigate when you are in your element. Face it: we’ve all played the “who-you-know” game a time or two; it’s more often not what you know, but who you know, that opens doors.When I moved back to Memphis, I was able to jump right back into my prior life. And positive changes had occurred while I was away: there were more bars and restaurants in the Beale Street and Midtown areas, downtown living spaces had multiplied significantly, and AutoZonePark now offers Memphis residents a top-notch minor-league baseball field.

But beyond the social, I could sense a city that was growing more comfortable with its heritage, its social makeup-and its potential. Once a city of pervasive racial strife, Memphis is now the home of the National Civil Rights Museum, a comprehensive exhibition of the key elements of the American Civil Rights Movement. The city also relishes its role in professional sports as the home of the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team.

Of course, the things that I find appealing about Memphis-its Southern charm and traditions, its small-town feel amid big-city attractions-may be the very reasons someone else wouldn’t care to live here. Memphis has its strong points and its problems, like any other city, but its hold on me is exclusive and inescapable. I’ve found that it takes leaving home to find out what the word really means.