Celebration planned for 100-year anniversary of Tom Lee’s heroism
Bill Dries, Daily Memphian
When 2024 becomes 2025, it will mark the centennial of Tom Lee’s 1925 Mississippi River rescue of 32 people.
The Downtown Memphis riverside park that bears Lee’s name will be a focal point of observances marking the anniversary, including a film, a walking tour that features the story of the river rescue and community sing-alongs.
The Memphis River Parks Partnership, which operates and maintains Tom Lee Park under contract with the city, is organizing events aimed at encouraging people to embrace the values that led Tom Lee to rescue people he didn’t know from the river, even though he couldn’t swim.
“It is so rare to have a public space that builds on the values of its namesake,” MRPP president and CEO Carol Coletta said in announcing the activities. “But that’s exactly what Memphis has on its riverfront.”
The center of the 31-acre park that was redesigned in 2023 remains a 2006 sculpture by David Alan Clark depicting Lee reaching from a boat to a person who’s clinging to a piece of wood.
The sculpture is surrounded by a new plaza that calls attention to the monument and also serves as a gathering point for impromptu meetings, planned discussion events and field trips.
Lee was making his way back to Memphis from Helena, Arkansas, on May 8, 1925, when he saw the sternwheeler M.E. Norman capsize after he had passed the larger boat.
He immediately turned around and began pulling people from the swift river current and taking them to shore.
Lee made several trips, saving 32 people in all from the group of civil engineers and their families who were holding a convention in Memphis.
The story of a Black laborer rescuing prominent white citizens was once the city’s best-known river story, only to fade over the decades since.
The Memphis Engineers Club monument to Lee was erected in the park two years after Lee’s 1952 death. The obelisk, which referred to Lee as “a worthy Negro,” was toppled by two separate straight-line wind storms in the 21st century.
The centennial observances planned by MRPP so far include:
A park walking tour with markers and QR codes that include audio of Memphians telling the story.
A short film by Last Bite Films offering what the MRPP says will be “an artistic take” on the river rescue. The partnership is providing financial support for the film.
A poem by Ed Mabrey commissioned by MRPP with a video to mark the centennial.
The latest edition of the annual Tom Lee poetry contest where entrants relate Lee’s story to present-day Memphis.
A partnership with the Memphis-Shelby County Room at the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to encourage research on Lee.
“Community all-sings” starting in the spring in the park.
Boards in the park starting Feb. 18, Lee’s birthday, for parkgoers to post there and on social media about what Memphis would look like if Memphians were “just 1% more like Tom Lee, exhibiting courage, generosity and humanity.”
A day of service on the May 8 anniversary date as well as “a family friendly celebration” during the summer.