BESSIE SMITH, JACK MASSEY, ROBERT CHURCH SR.

Hi Ya'll,

Greetings again from Tennessee! Today I have three people I would like to introduce to you. Although not very well known, they were all remarkable individuals.

Often known as the "Empress of the Blues," Bessie Smith influenced entire generations of blues, jazz, and rock musicians and was the highest-paid black entertainer of her time. Born in 1892 in Chattanooga, she was one of 13 children. To help raise money for her family, she and her brother performed on the streets of Chattanooga. In 1912 she was hired by a group of traveling entertainers known as the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, and the next year she formed her own act in Atlanta. After the release of her 1923 song Down Hearted Blues, Smith became hugely popular as a Columbia recording artist.
Bessie Smith died from injuries incurred in a 1937 automobile accident. By the way, rock singer Janis Joplin later donated money to pay for Bessie's tombstone .


You may not have ever heard of Jack Massey, but you’ve heard of Colonel Sanders,the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. In 1964 Sanders sold his restaurant chain to Massey, a Nashville businessman, and a young lawyer named John Y. Brown Jr. Massey and Brown expanded the company, spent huge amounts of money on advertising and shifted the business into stand-alone locations (prior to that time Kentucky Fried Chicken had mainly been a menu item at sit-down restaurants). The chain grew and grew until it was the largest restaurant company in the world – larger, at that time, than McDonald’s. Massey later sold his share of Kentucky Fried Chicken and went on to help start two other large companies – Hospital Corporation of American, which owns hospitals, and Winner’s Corp., which at that time owned Mrs. Winner’s restaurants. Jack Massey, the Tennessean, thus became the only person in American history to ever take three companies to the New York Stock Exchange.

Robert Church Sr. was born a slave but by the end of his life had become the South's first African-American millionaire. Although he was born in Mississippi, after the Civil War, Church settled in Memphis and began buying and renting small apartments, eventually working his way to owning a saloon, restaurant and hotel. In 1899, a time when black citizens weren't allowed to go into most white theaters and parks, he opened "Church's Park and Auditorium." This quickly became the cultural center for Memphis' African-American community, and among the people who appeared at this facility were President Theodore Roosevelt, Booker T. Washington and William C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues." A few years later Church was one of several black leaders who founded the Solvent Savings bank and Trust Co., the first black bank in Memphis in decades.

And now you know about three more notable people who helped to shaped Tennessee.

I hope ya'll have a great weekend and I'll see you back here on Monday!

Take care.

YOUR FAVORITE TENNESSEAN

EUNICE