George W. Lee 1894-1976

Lee told the story of Black Memphis in books. Born in Indianola, Mississippi, on January 4, 1894, and educated at Alcorn, he served as a lieutenant in France. In Memphis he became the trusted lieutenant of Robert R. Church Sr. and a promoter of Black business and pride. His Beale Street: Where the Blues Began came out in 1934, the novel River George, about a Black veteran lynched on returning home, in 1937, and the folklife collection Beale Street Sundown in 1942. He led Memphis chapters of the NAACP and Urban League and died August 1, 1976.

What the plaque says

George W. Lee 1894-1976 Political, business and civic leader, Lee was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Expeditionary Force. Heroic in W.W.I, he was an active black combat officer. An insurance executive and capitalist, Lee was leader of the Lincoln League and Old Guard Republican Party for 45 years in Shelby County. He was a Tenn. Republican Exec. Committeeman and, in 1952 at the Republican Convention, he seconded the nomination of Robert Taft for president. Orator and author of Beale Street. Lee was the Order of Elks Grand Commissioner of Education. In 1973, his portrait was placed in the State Capitol.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Studio — 0.4 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.
• Beale Street — 0.4 mi
  The street that became the center of Black Memphis after the Civil War, home to Church's Park, W. C. Handy, Ida B. Wells and the blues, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• National Civil Rights Museum — 0.8 mi
  The Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr. was killed on April 4, 1968, kept as a museum of the civil rights movement from the nineteenth century to today.
• 1866 Memphis Massacre Marker at Army Park — 0.8 mi
  A privately funded NAACP marker in a small downtown park, placed in 2016, that names the May 1866 attack on Black South Memphis as a massacre.

More markers nearby

• Universal Life Insurance Building / Universal Life Insurance Company — steps away
• The First Railroad in West Tennessee The LaGrange & Memphis Railroad — steps away
• Mary Church Terrell — 0.2 mi
• Church Park — 0.2 mi