By: Derick Zhang

In Mason, Tennessee about a 45-minute drive from Memphis, on the 5th day of May 2022, a settlement was made between the town of Mason and the state government. The mayor of Mason, Emmitt Gooden and the state comptroller, Jason Mumpower, agreed on a plan with a new monthly payment of roughly $5,000 a month compared to $22,000 and instead of needing approval from the state comptroller for any spending above $100, the threshold was raised to $1,000.

The action taken by the state government was discriminatory because other towns nearby that had debt who were majority-white, didn’t face the same pressure that Mason, a mostly Black town did. NAACP President, Derrick Johnson said “This was a power grab, not a path to support the citizens, they were seeking to dissolve the town.” They weren’t there to help, but more to hurt. The monthly payment and entire debt were diabolical and incredibly impractical. As vice mayor Virginia Rivers said, “We were being set up to fail.”

With the new settlement and the Ford factory neighboring the town, hopefully they will be able to pay off their debt and give this town a fresh start. But there are still a lot of unanswered questions still lurking around like “what was the source of this debt?” “who oversaw the town and was there any mismanagement at the time?” and “will the Ford factory sustain an entire town?”

This settlement might be a first step for this town to be a thriving community, but the town and state government has a long way to go. Discrimination cannot be the roadblock to a flourishing little town.