Wharton Becomes 5th Mayor in 41 Years

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A filmmaker could bally-hoo it as a story thirty years in the making. A young black Mississippi attorney moves to Memphis in 1979. He joins an active non-profit organization called "Leadership Memphis" and is immediately hailed as someone who'll make a difference.

"I AC Wharton......" (oath)

It might not have been pre-ordained AC Wharton would eventually become the Mayor of Memphis, but at his noon swearing-in ceremony inside the fabled Hall of Mayors on Monday, the stars seemed to have aligned this right to make a dream an inevitability.

Rick Mason, former City Chief Administrative Officer, surmised, "You can look at the crowd here today. It's a cross-section of our community. They all want Mayor Wharton to succeed. We want our city to succeed."

Flanked on all sides by a crowd, that measured at least fifteen deep on the bottom floor, Wharton adhered to the advice he received from his absent 93-year old mother..."to just act right"

What he delivered was a workman-like address, not filled with his usual home-spun witticisms. But, still one confidently given by a man whose garnered sixty percent of the vote gives him a "mandate for change"....political capital he plans on cashing in on beginning in the next thirty days.

During his speech Wharton declared, "I carry a mandate from every neighborhood. Westwood to Raleigh. New Chicago to Cordova and every community where people want better schools, better jobs and a more efficient government and safer streets.

He continued, "The desire for me to help bring an end to the rancor and divisiveness. That too often been defined as our politics and clogged the engine of our forward progress. We must demand better of ourselves and we must reflect an optimism in our nature that speaks to the hope in the heart of every citizen. I've said it before and I'll say it again....One Memphis!"

It was a speech that played well to a majority of the receptive audience...especially considering it seemed to signal the official end of an era where confidence and trust in local government had reached, perhaps, an all-time low.

Outgoing Memphis Mayor Pro-Tem, Myron Lowery, asserted, "The spirit of optimism will reign in this city for the coming months and years. It is a new day in Memphis. A new day of transparency. Of openness. Of being able to ask your government for help and you will get that help."

MCS Board member, Tomeka Hart, said of Wharton, "He really wants to see some work. He really wants to see vision. He wants to see things that are gonna move this city. It's very exciting!"

Dick Hackett, a former Mayor of Memphis concluded, "I think the best judge of what he will do in the future is what he's done in the past...and that's been a good, decent man...hardworking..standing up for what's right."

For AC Wharton it's been a story in the making. Now, it's time to start in earnest, to make it a positive one for all of us.