How Black people fought for dignity from behind the bars at 201 Poplar

From Rev. James Lawson and Ralph Abernathy, to the Invaders and Black Panthers, Memphis history has its share of Black political prisoners. Many organizers, preachers and protesters have been incarcerated here for their roles in freedom movements. 

But we rarely talk about how ordinary inmates have made political demands from inside Shelby County’s jail system — fighting against substandard living conditions and brutal mistreatment from jail staff. These political struggles have deeply shaped the history of our Downtown jail (better known by its address, 201 Poplar), which is in the midst of a renewed crisis over unsafe conditions. 

Originally designed for “short-term stays and pretrial detention,” Memphis jails have consistently functioned more like prisons. Many inmates have been held for extended periods before and after trial, or find themselves stuck awaiting transfer to state and federal authorities. When 201 Poplar was just 10 years old, hundreds of people staged uprisings there, sparking a statewide debate about the jail’s basic purpose. In the process, Black inmates highlighted the urgent need to secure dignity, respect and fairness for those inside — and the limits of jail and prison reform as lasting solutions. 

The birth of the ‘Glamor Slammer’

Throughout the 1970s, inmates used lawsuits to challenge operations at the old county jail Downtown (now a county clerk’s office). These actions reflected the beginnings of mass incarceration in Tennessee and a growing prison movement nationwide. In her book,  “Golden Gulag,” geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore argues that “the post-World War II civil rights movement’s courtroom successes encouraged prisoners to use the system against itself.” 

In 1972, three inmates filed a federal lawsuit with Memphis Area Legal Services, alleging that jail conditions were unconstitutional. Each had spent more than a year there while awaiting trial. The lawsuit’s claims were wide-ranging, from overcrowding and substandard food to “barbaric” solitary confinement cells and excessive punishment by guards. 

Over the next few years, the case became a class-action lawsuit that included over 30 current and former inmates (as well as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund). At the same time, more than 30 separate lawsuits hit the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office from inside the jail — seeking over $3 billion total in damages. Many were filed by “jailhouse lawyers,” or inmates who studied law informally to assist other inmates with court matters.

In 1976, federal judge Robert McRae Jr. ruled that conditions at the old county jail “[violated] the right of detainees to due process of law and equal protection under the law.” As part of his recommendations, McRae urged the county to build a new jail “as soon as possible.” Although elected officials had discussed the idea for almost a decade, political and economic pressure from inmates forced the county to finish it.

Newspaper clippings from 1980 to 1981 trace the progress from the old jail at 150 Washington Avenue to 201 Poplar.

When it opened on Sept. 5, 1981, the new Shelby County Criminal Justice Center was designed to hold around 1,200 inmates (800 more than the old jail). Planners and architects claimed it would be a cutting-edge facility that met all constitutional standards. One high-ranking county staffer said, “There’s no doubt that it will be nicer than many of the homes from which its inmates come.” Journalist Kay Pittman-Black called it a “glamor slammer.” Within five years, it was over capacity.

Photojournalists with the Commercial Appeal shadowed the Metro Narcotics Unit during the “jump and grab” years of 1988 and 1989 that caused the jail population to spike.

Then crack cocaine hit Memphis in the mid-’80s and arrests skyrocketed. Former Sheriff Rambo Jack Owens — an Army veteran and former Memphis City Council member — began a ruthless anti-drug campaign. Deputies from the Metro Narcotics Unit (who called themselves “crack cowboys”) led so-called “jump and grab” operations, where officers posed as drug dealers and buyers to entrap people. The Ronald Reagan administration also passed mandatory minimum sentences for crack possession, creating a pipeline from small-time drug use to long jail bids.

But once again, scandals piled up inside, like beatings by tactical officers and inmates held for months after their release dates. Some inmates filed complaints with the NAACP, while others sued in federal court. In 1988, the jail was decertified by the state for overcrowding and increased rates of violence. The following year, federal judge Julia Gibbons ruled conditions there were unconstitutional. Owens soon died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, leaving the sheriff’s office in further disarray.

1991: The fourth floor’s hot summer 

Shelby County’s population was 43.6% Black in 1990. A year later, jail staff reported that Black inmates represented 90% of those housed at 201 Poplar. After adding new beds and converting a gym into living space, the jail could hold around 2,800 inmates — but its daily population stayed dangerously close to that number.

Because of the federal ruling, jail staff created a new system of separating inmates to prevent violence. The jail’s fourth floor (home to 584 inmates) was reserved for those accused of violent crimes and convicted felons awaiting transfer to state prisons. In the summer of 1991, tensions on the fourth floor reached their breaking point.

The first warning sign came on June 22. Around 5 a.m., a group of inmates complained to jail staff about their breakfast — “watered down” eggs and overcooked bacon. When guards told the inmates to return to their cells, they refused. Instead, they released more inmates from their cells and set small fires with paper. Around 100 inmates took part in the disturbance, which lasted three hours until they agreed to return to their cells. Food quality was not part of the court order, but it was a long-running complaint. None of the disruptive inmates faced additional charges, and the sheriff’s office promised improvements. 

Six weeks later, a federal grand jury indicted 23 jail employees for smuggling drugs inside, including crack cocaine. Among those indicted was the jail’s longtime chaplain, Harvey Logan Chiles. Rumors spread among the remaining staff that something big was going to happen. 

Fast forward to Saturday, Aug. 17. Around 8 a.m., guards on the fourth floor began their daily headcount. As they visited the floor’s 17 “pods” (a term for a group of cells surrounding a common area), inmates refused to let them inside. According to one unnamed guard, “[the inmates] said if we came in there they were going to whup us.”  

When the guards entered a pod near the fourth floor’s “control center,” inmates rushed from their cells — their faces covered with “masks made from sheets and towels.” Many carried knives made from metal piping and newspapers tightly coiled into makeshift clubs. The guards fled the pod, closing the door behind them, but the inmates opened the lock and spread out in the floor’s main hallway.

From there, the inmates ran to the control center and forced it open. They used the control panels inside to unlock more pods as other inmates broke plexiglass to escape. Eventually, almost all of the fourth floor’s 584 occupants were roaming outside their cells. Guards barricaded behind sliding metal curtains that didn’t lock, “[arming] themselves with broken mop handles.”

Now that the inmates were firmly in control of the fourth floor, they proceeded to wreck it. Some burned cardboard boxes and magazines. Others grabbed fire hoses and sprayed water across the floor. Almost every window on the fourth floor was broken as inmates tossed out debris and hung burning sheets from the windowsills. Furniture, kitchen appliances and computers were smashed. Pipes and insulation were torn from the walls. Many inmates also tore off their ID bracelets, making them harder to identify. Word eventually reached the third floor, where a smaller group of nonviolent offenders broke more windows, shouted and tossed objects onto the street below. 

Published images of the 1991 riot at 201 Poplar that were documented by Commercial Appeal photojournalists.

Meanwhile, law enforcement went into crisis mode. Hundreds of officers from the sheriff’s office and Memphis Police Department surrounded the jail “to intimidate prisoners and prevent escapes.” Visitors waiting on the first floor were turned away. MPD’s TACT Unit (reserved for counter-terrorism, hostage situations and other high-risk emergencies) was sent inside to rescue the fourth-floor guards.

The commotion in and around the jail also attracted crowds of onlookers. One woman, whose fiancé was being held on drug charges, described the view from the street below: “They started busting all the windows out, hanging sheets, burning things — anything they could do, they did it. They just kept saying, ‘We want some rights.’” Many in the crowd openly supported the riot as inmates’ relatives told stories of the brutal conditions inside. One protester led chants of “Get buck!,” quoting a single by Memphis rapper Pretty Tony.

Instead of retaking the jail by force, Sheriff A.C. Gilless directed officers to wait and “try to wear [the prisoners] out.” By mid-afternoon, law enforcement persuaded the third-floor rioters to return to their cells. Representatives from the sheriff’s office then began negotiating with the majority left on the fourth floor. Some inmates asked to speak with Mike Fleming, an executive producer for WMC-TV Action News 5 and former Commercial Appeal reporter. For an hour, they described a laundry list of complaints, from beatings by guards to cramped living spaces and high commissary prices. They also asked that “there would be no retaliation if they gave up and returned to their cells.”

Law enforcement agreed to investigate inmates’ grievances and promised not to retaliate. Around 4:15 p.m. — a full eight hours after the riot started — the fourth-floor inmates finally agreed to surrender.

Images from the aftermath of the August 1991 riot at 201 Poplar published in The Commercial Appeal showed extensive damage.

The next day, the sheriff’s office began to pick up the pieces. In total, the riot caused over $700,000 in damage to the Downtown jail (or $1.6 million today). Two inmates suffered minor injuries, and no jail staff were hurt. On the other hand, 201 Poplar’s fourth floor was declared completely unusable. Repairs inside took more than four months to complete.

True to their word, the sheriff’s office chose not to press charges against any rioters. “What are you going to do with people who already have a life sentence?” Gilless remarked. Instead, hundreds of rioters were transferred to the Shelby County Correction Center (also known as the Shelby County Penal Farm). 

When jails look like prisons 

Although the sheriff’s office had promised to address the inmates’ complaints, they largely dismissed those complaints once the riots were over. Gilless consistently denied claims of staff violence and inadequate food, arguing that inmates would “use any excuse they can to justify what they’ve done.” Instead, he suggested that inmates were angry because jail employees had been indicted for drug smuggling — reducing the flow of contraband. But that narrative left out the unique experiences of state inmates within the county jail system.

Six years before the riot, a federal judge had declared Tennessee’s state prisons unconstitutionally crowded. As a result, a court order placed a cap on the state prison population. When local jails tried to solve their crowding issues by moving convicted felons, state prisons mostly refused to accept them. In one instance, former Sheriff Gene Barksdale handcuffed 12 jail inmates to a fence at the West Tennessee Reception Center and left them as a publicity stunt. 

So-called “pen-ready” inmates were branded as the jail’s most dangerous occupants. Many ended up there because of Owen’s drug war. Stuck between systems that would not accommodate them, they used every available path to make their jail stays bearable. In the long run, though, their acts of resistance were buried beneath a bigger story: on Oct. 3, 1991, Willie Herenton became Memphis’ first elected Black mayor. With “the beginning of a new, majority Black governing coalition,” a wave of optimism swept the region’s Black leadership class — obscuring how the racist brutality of its jails and prisons continued to go unresolved. 

Five years later, another inmate lawsuit brought another federal court order to reduce violence at 201 Poplar. When the U.S. Department of Justice investigated the jail in 2000, its findings mirrored those from 1976 and 1989: overcrowding, excessive force by guards (including the unregulated use of chemical agents like pepper spray), a high threat of inmate-on-inmate violence and insufficient access to sanitation, medical care and legal resources. The county jail has come under renewed scrutiny in recent years for a number of issues, “including inmate deaths, broken jail locks, deferred kitchen maintenance, malnutrition and violence.” Fifty-one people have died at 201 Poplar since 2019, including three this year. Relatives have filed wrongful death lawsuits in the cases of three Black inmates: Gershun Freeman, Deion Byrd and Ramon McGhee.

Although 201 Poplar hasn’t seen another large-scale riot, inmates have continued to disrupt operations in smaller ways. In 2017, 17 inmates barricaded themselves inside their pod and caused $7,000 worth of damage — supposedly because of their “allotted recreation time.” This past May, the sheriff’s office reported “several disturbances” in a single housing unit: inmates set fires, knocked cell doors off their tracks and tied the door to their unit closed with bedsheets.

In response to these issues, the sheriff’s office and other local leaders have pushed for more corrections officers, emergency repairs and a new, modernized jail facility. Shelby County Commissioner Amber Mills argued earlier this year that a new jail would “be built for our lifetime. We won’t have to deal with this again.” In April, the County Commission approved a $250,000 study to explore the variables involved. Initial estimates suggest a new jail could cost at least $500 million — and there are lingering questions about how to pay for it.

When inmates lash out against their confinement, they highlight the everyday violence that all human caging depends on. This is especially true in moments of protest. “Though struggles over access to decent food, clothing, shelter, medical care, visitation privileges, humane parole policies, and so on are an important site of political contestation,” writes anthropologist Orisanmi Burton, “these appeals constitute the prison movement’s minimum demands: calls for bare survival amid genocide.”

To take these demands seriously, we have to ask why violence, neglect and overcrowding have been constants in our jails for the past 60 years. Are they actually capable of treating inmates with dignity and respect on a mass scale? Will a bigger Downtown jail really make our criminal justice system more “efficient,” or will our jail population grow alongside it? Who benefits most from the endless cycle of jail reform and expansion? Who’s sacrificed in the process?

As debates continue over the future of 201 Poplar, we should recognize that Black inmates have demanded just and humane jails for the past half-century — and they’ve often been ignored. Beyond questions of individual innocence or guilt, their actions call on us to dismantle the anti-Black violence built into our Downtown jail from the ground up.

Justin A. Davis is a freelance journalist, music critic and former grassroots organizer. He’s covered politics, pop culture and history for outlets like Scalawag magazine, Waging Nonviolence, Prism and Science for the People. He lives in Memphis.

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