Contrasting the black and white cultures of Memphis, Tennessee, WHAT MEMPHIS NEEDS is based on a poem written in the Free People's Poetry Workshop of the internationally renowned "prison poet" Etheridge Knight. From ponies running through the Memphis cottonwoods to a girl running across the construction site of Mud Island, from white kids in a West Memphis parade throwing candy at black bystanders to a Bible reading in the Lorraine Motel, and from rock 'n' rollers to marquee lights on Beale Street, WHAT MEMPHIS NEEDS provides a searing cross-section of Memphis history and society. Featuring the Harmonikeys and Roosevelt Briggs.

Categories of interest: Black Studies, Urban Studies, Poetry, Protest Poems, Cinepoetry, Women's Studies, Civil Rights, Harmonica, Blues, the American South, Memphis, Racism

Exhibition: Ann Arbor Film Festival Tour; The '90s, PBS; Anthology Film Archives; Louisville Int'l Film & Video Festival, Museum of Modern Art