Walking in Memphis with (images of) Jesus
Memphis is known for blues, barbecue, and kings. Elvis Presley, the “king of rock ’n’ roll,” shook, rattled, and rolled his way to stardom by drawing from the art of African Americans. He was, arguably, bigger than Jesus before John Lennon made that controversial claim for the Beatles in the 1960s. In that decade, Memphis became infamous for what happened to the preacher King. There to support the sanitation workers strike of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and the legacy of bloodshed continues to haunt the city.
Elvis and Martin are not the only kings of Memphis. There’s also the king of kings. To enter the downtown YMCA, one has to pass two Christ figures. The first is a six-inch-tall replica of Bertel Thorvaldsen’s white marble Christus. It was originally completed in the late 1830s, and is most popular now among Mormons. Massive versions are in several Mormon welcome centers, while smaller ones and pictures of it populate Mormon homes and businesses. The second is Warner Sallman’s Head of Christ, the most reproduced image of Jesus in the world. Although neither explicitly references race, a look around Memphis and Tennessee may leave us with “suspicious minds.”
Travel four miles east from the YMCA and one can witness very different images of Jesus. In the main building of Memphis Theological Seminary, the artwork of Mary Button lines the walls. At present, she is the minister of visual art at First Congregational Church, UCC, in Memphis.
