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Melissa Harris-Perry: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, thanks for being with us as we continue our week long look back at some of our favorite conversations of the year. Today, we begin in Mason, Tennessee.

Otis Sanford: Mason is a small town but a very historic town. It's located in West Tennessee, in Tipton County, 40 miles northeast of Memphis. The town has about 1,300 or so residents. About 70% or so of the residents are African-American. It's a quaint little small town in West Tennessee.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mason has fewer residents than the number of students in many urban high schools, but even though it's tiny, Mason is mighty.

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Vice Mayor Rivers: Mason matters because we have been here the majority of us all our lives. This is our heritage. We matter because we are a people and we're not just somebody who you can just push over, walk over, we are just as important and we will survive this.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Earlier this year, the Tennessee comptroller seized control of Mason's finances after the town's elected leaders refuse to surrender the town's charter.

Otis Sanford: It has an interesting history going all the way back to the Civil War.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's Otis Sanford. He's a political columnist for The Daily Memphian and a journalism professor at the University of Memphis.

Otis Sanford: There were some interesting entertainment places there back in the 1960s where African-Americans would party, even those from Memphis would go up to Mason and have a good time or on, especially on the weekends.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, we're going to get back to Otis in a moment. First, to understand this part of West Tennessee, let's consider its history. The town of Mason was formerly established in 1855 and is named for James Mason, who came from a prominent Virginia family to settle the area. He set off a chain migration of other Virginians, most of whom were enslavers who came to the area to farm cotton.

John Marshall: I'm John Marshall and my family has been in Mason for six generations.

Melissa Harris-Perry: John Marshall grew up in Mason. Now his was one of those families that came to Mason from Virginia in the 1830s. His great-grandfather owned a cotton gin and was Mason's mayor in the 1920s. His grandfather had an insurance business in Mason and his family still farms the area. Today, John works as a judicial magistrate in Memphis, but his first love is history.

John Marshall: I suppose I got so interested in Mason by listening to my grandfather who lived his entire life there from 1912 to when he died in 1993. He was a great storyteller and captivated my imagination when I was just a child. Knew everybody, of course Black and white. When I was still just a teenager, I started asking questions of older people in my family, of older Black people as well. I was just very curious about how we were all interconnected. The fact that a lot of us had the same surnames was always interesting to me in the Black and the white community and how that had all come about.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Marshall got a master's degree in history from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge before pursuing law. As an amateur Mason historian, John has written two books about his hometown. These are the type of humble, local history books you probably find on a dusty shelf at your municipal library, maybe not on the New York Times Bestseller list.

John Marshall: The railroad came through in 1850s, the Memphis to Ohio Railroad. The old story is that it came right through Mr. Mason's pig pen. It was on his plantation and the railroad was coming right through where he had his hogs, so a lot of the early railroad engineers nicknamed the town Mason's Hog Pen. It was not a very pretty name, but there's still a street in Mason today called Washington Avenue that all the locals refer to as Pig Alley. Then very soon he gave land for a depot and hotels and stores started up and it was right on the eve of the Civil War.

Melissa Harris-Perry: According to Marshall, census data from 1860 show that the areas around Mason were 75% to 80% Black and after the railroad came and then the Civil War, formerly enslaved people and their ancestors from Mason and its surrounding areas, well, they mostly stayed and they've always been inextricably linked to Mason's identity and to its self-determination.

Otis Sanford: There were a lot of former slaves who stayed in that town and helped the town to maintain itself.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Here again is Otis Sanford. Remember, he's the political columnist and a journalism professor we met a bit earlier.

Otis Sanford: They were property owners there. They certainly had a strong culture there in terms of the religious culture, again, the entertainment culture of the town. It has this history around it, again, that dates back to the 1800. A lot of those folks, their ancestors are buried there. They cherish their place in history when it comes to their ability to sustain itself, maintain itself and stay a close-knit community.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mason is not affluent, but it is scrappy, self-sufficient and proud. That proud independence is a core reason Mason even exists. Shortly after the end of the Civil War in 1865, Mason enacted its town charter, giving the town the legal foundation to handle its own public services and financial affairs. Now, 153 years later, this charter is a key point of contention in the ongoing dispute between Mason and the State of Tennessee comptroller. Before we go any further, let's add one more piece to this puzzle: The largest economic development project in Tennessee history.

Otis Sanford: It was originally called the Memphis Regional Mega Site and this regional mega site just happens to be located about five or so miles from Mason. It's a site that had been part of development plans for the State of Tennessee for years. It's a lot of space out there. It's close to the interstate and it was a choice location and the state was just hoping to get some major manufacturing company to show some interest in it.

Finally, last year, after a lot of money had been put into infrastructure there already, the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, announced that Ford Motor Company had agreed to build an electric truck plant and battery assembly plant on that site, which is the biggest economic development project in Tennessee history. It's a $5.6 billion development.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Ford's mega campus has been dubbed Blue Oval City because it will be, well, the size of a city, massive, nearly 3,600 acres or six square miles. Ford says it will be a hive of innovation that will build a new generation of electric F-Series trucks and batteries. Tennessee is even building an onsite trade school to train workers from surrounding areas. Set to be completed by 2025, Ford says the campus is going to bring an estimated 6,000 jobs directly to Blue Oval City and an estimated 26,000 jobs to the surrounding area as a whole. Here's Tennessee Governor, Bill Lee, in 2021.

Bill Lee: West Tennessee will now lead the nation and the next American Industrial Revolution. Blue Oval City will generate billions of dollars and economic impact through its construction and then its residency.

Melissa Harris-Perry: What would Blue Oval City mean for little Mason? Here's Vice-Mayor Virginia Rivers. Her family has lived in Mason back to her great, great, great grandparents and her ancestors farmed the land in Mason. Some were sharecroppers.

Vice Mayor Rivers: It would mean jobs because they're going to have a training site where people can go and be trained to work for them. That means that our citizens would be able to have better jobs. Our town can have gas stations, grocery stores, so we can and we will grow in another five years if we be left alone by the comptroller and allow the money to come to Mason, that is rightfully Mason, that we rightfully deserve, that we'll be able to prosper just like any other city.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This all seems like good news, a climate friendly business investment comes to a humble part of West Tennessee bringing jobs and opportunity. You just know it's more complicated than that. Let's rewind a bit. Because for much of its history, this now predominantly black town of Mason, Tennessee was governed by white elected leaders.

John Marshall: I think, at that time, when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, the town board was probably still all white. Probably in the '80s, or by the early '80s they had elected a couple of Black aldermen. In the late 1800s you had Black political involvement, and then post-Civil Rights, you did begin to see some officials elected in Mason, but it wasn't until 2015 that Mason got a Black mayor.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Gwendolyn Kilpatrick was elected alderwoman and vice mayor in 2014, and she became Mason's first Black mayor in 2015. That was after David Smith resigned his mayoral office amidst a scandal of decades-long fraud and financial mismanagement of the city. Now, back in April, Mason had a Black mayor and a vice mayor and five of its six aldermen were Black. This Black elected leadership inherited significant fiscal challenges, issues that predated their leadership. That much is undisputed.

According to the news site Tennessee Lookout, in 2001, a State of Tennessee audit of the town's finances found numerous accounting and tax issues. In 2011, a formal town clerk, Arnita Mitchell, plead guilty to felony charges of embezzlement of almost $100,000 in taxpayer funds. Then in 2015, more fraud allegations emerged. The Tennessee comptroller, then under the leadership of Comptroller Justin Wilson, launched an investigation.

Most of the City Hall officials resigned, all of whom were white. Christopher Trimble, the former public works superintendent, he was indicted and charged with theft and misconduct after allegedly paying himself an extra $600,000 from the town's water fund between 2007 and 2015.

Vice Mayor Rivers: They were transferring money from the water system account to the general fund account to pay the bills in the town. All this was going on when we got there.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That's Virginia Rivers, who served as vice mayor of Mason. She was elected to her first term as Mason alderman in 2015, won reelection in 2019, and was appointed vice mayor in 2020.

Vice Mayor Rivers: When we first went in, it was over $900,000 the town was in debt of. We worked hard, starting in 2016, trying to pay that, but we first had to figure out where the town was because there was no records as to what they had done, how they had did it.

Melissa Harris-Perry: So these have been hard years for Mason. The comptroller's 2016 report on Mason found that the town was failing to maintain its records properly, failing to make its deposits promptly, and delinquent on its taxes to the IRS, but the town's leaders say they were working to make progress. There was no indication that the comptroller would try to seize control of the town or of its finances, which is why what happened next was so shocking.

Let's hear again from Otis Sanford, political columnist for The Daily Memphian, who says the current leadership of Mason does bear some responsibility for the town's continuing financial problems.

Otis Sanford: Well, I haven't had any substantive conversations with the town leaders. I have had conversations with the people at the comptroller's office, and they supplied me with their documentation for the continuing financial problems in Mason, even after the majority African-American leadership took over. Yes, it is true that all of the major financial woes related to corruption and fraud, they did happen under a majority white leadership, but the debts continued to grow after African-Americans took over.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, fast-forward to March 3rd, 2022, five months after Ford announces Blue Oval City. On that same day, current Tennessee Comptroller, Jason Mumpower, sent a letter to all adult residents in Mason. It reads--

Jason Mumpower: Dear citizens of Mason, in my opinion, it's time for Mason to relinquish its charter.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It goes on to assert--

Jason Mumpower: For at least 20 years, the town government has been poorly managed, audits have been late, budgets have not been approved, major infrastructure needs have been ignored, and fraud has taken place, just to name a few issues.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Comptroller Mumpower's letter continues--

Jason Mumpower: The construction of the new Ford plant in West Tennessee could offer hope to your community, but I worry that if you remain an incorporated town, these opportunities will be missed. Unfortunately, government is not working in Mason. People and companies will not invest their money in a poorly run town.

Gloria Sweet-Love: What he chose to do was not meet with the officials of Mason but to send an open letter to all of the citizens of Mason, advising them to give up their charter, telling them that they need to just give up their charter because Ford wouldn't be wanting to do business with them and et cetera.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This is Gloria Sweet-Love, she's the president of the Tennessee State Conference NAACP.

Gloria Sweet-Love: Where I come into play is, Vice Mayor Rivers contacted me a few days prior to them having a town hall meeting where this letter would be talked about and asked me if I would come, and I came. I want to also share with the audience that Vice Mayor Rivers, speaking on behalf of Mayor Gooden and the alderpersons of Mason, presented a nine-point plan that addressed every issue that the comptroller had discussed in his letter because he told half-truths.

He chose to take a bullying approach to try to force them into turning over their charter. I showed up with four-five of my area presidents, and what we said to them to encourage them is that, "We will stand with you. Do not turn over your charter. Of all the other things, do not turn over your charter."

Melissa Harris-Perry: Comptroller Mumpower's letter made Mason's choices clear. Either the town voluntarily relinquish its 153-year-old charter, which would mean ceding control to Tipton County's government, or the comptroller would step in and take financial control of Mason himself. Not much of a choice, given Mason's history. Here again is local historian and Mason native's son John Marshall.

John Marshall: The demographics around the southeastern part of Tipton County, where Mason is, have always been heavily Black. The county was, at the time of the Civil War, it was about half-white, half-Black, but with the coming decades, it became majority white. Most of the county has always been majority white. Mason has always been majority Black.

Melissa Harris-Perry: According to the most recent census data, Tipton County's residents are 78% white, and 74% of Tipton County voters cast their ballot for President Trump in the 2020 election. The NAACP's Gloria Sweet-Love sees a link between the state's request that Mason relinquish its charter and the timing of Blue Oval City.

Gloria Sweet-Love: West Tennessee is where the plantations were, where the slaves were, it is where, until in the '70s and '80s, basically, the major jobs for African-Americans were sharecropping. We have a history of discrimination and of working people for almost nothing. When I think back and I think about the fact that even when industries started to move into this area, Black people were not able to get the jobs.

Most Black females were asked to take care of the white people's babies while they went and took the jobs in the industry. It is a rural, poor area. The history has been that there has been discrimination and bias against Black people for years and years. We know that a lot of the land has been illegally taken away, almost with frauds and scam, of what Black people owned. We have a history of discrimination here. Mason is the last vestiges of power within the Democrats because Mason is basically Democratic, and the rest of Tipton County is basically right-wing Republican.

If Huffman can get Mason's charter gone, he can pretty much take over the county. That's what Mumpower meant when he said he did not think Mason could profit from Blue Oval being there. As Vice Mayor Rivers was saying, he was basically saying that he didn't feel like the people of Mason had the intellect to actually be able to go and get jobs. We know that they do.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Mason Vice Mayor Virginia Rivers is blunt about her opinion.

Vice Mayor Rivers: Mumpower himself made this statement, that we were ill-capable of handling the funds of Mason. He's never made that statement about anybody else. I took offense to that because that's just like calling me stupid, and I didn't appreciate that. Those things say a lot about how he feels, but as far as Mason's concerned, we are very intelligent. There are educated people here, and we do and we will stand for what's right, and we will win in the end.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Let me mention here, we did reach out to Tipton County executive Jeff Huffman for comment on this segment, but at the time that we went to air, we had not yet received a response. If we do, we'll put it up at thetakeaway.org. More on the story of Mason, Tennessee in just a moment.

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Back with The Takeaway, I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and we're revisiting our conversation from earlier this year about the town of Mason, Tennessee and how the Tennessee State comptroller has been fighting for control over Mason's finances just as the largest financial investment in the state's history, Ford's Blue Oval City plant, breaks ground a few miles down the road.

After Comptroller Mumpower's letter to residents urging them to hand over their charter, the Mason community convened in town hall meetings and back in March, Mason's Board of Aldermen passed a resolution to retain their charter. That very next day, Comptroller Mumpower announced his office would take over the town's finances, and for Mason, this means that any expense over $100 would have to be approved by the comptroller's office.

Vice Mayor Rivers: Any bills that we have, that's over $100, we have to ask them for permission to pay that bill. We have to send it to them, and they'll send back and say whether or not we can pay that bill. Also, we can't even apply for grants without their permission. We've lost employees because of what they're doing, because they felt their job was at jeopardy. This has caused a lot of stress on the mayor and the board of eldermans in Mason.

Melissa Harris-Perry: These restrictions make it difficult to govern even a small town like Mason and local NAACP President, Gloria Sweet-Love, says it's just not practical.

Gloria Sweet-Love: If a waterline broke in the middle of the night they do not have the authorization to go on and get that done because they have to go and seek that from the comptroller. The other thing is, and we have looked down through the years, never in the history can we find where the comptroller has ever put this kind of burden on a town before.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Here again is political columnist and journalist and Professor Otis Sanford.

Otis Sanford: I'm trying to give everybody the benefit of the doubt here. When I look at this, historically, Mason has had financial problems for two decades, well over two decades, and the efforts by the state to have them to correct their problems didn't just begin last year. When you look at it from that standpoint, I'm loathed to say that it's because of the Ford plant coming, but at the same time, the level of pressure, if you will, by the state did increase after the announcement of Ford. A cynic would say that they probably would not have been this aggressive had it not been for the Ford plant. It's still not a good look for them.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, we did reach out to Ford Motor Company multiple times for comment on this story, and we did not receive a response. However, after the comptroller's announcement, Ford did release a statement saying that, "They were aware of the situation between Mason and the State of Tennessee, but said the company was not directly involved." The statement continued, "We've reached out to state and local community leaders to express concern and learn more."

Ford also expressed their commitment towards, "Equitable opportunities for West Tennesseans, including the residents of Mason." Political columnist Otis Sanford acknowledges that parts of the comptroller's takeover seem oppressive, but Otis says there actually is precedent for this.

Otis Sanford: Yes, there have been other places. I'm particularly familiar with a small county further East in Tennessee, Van Buren County, that had financial problems and the comptroller's office stepped in and took over their finances, and this is a heavily majority white county. Yes, this has been done before.

Melissa Harris-Perry: After the comptroller's takeover, State Conference NAACP President Gloria Sweet-Love consulted with legal counsel. On April 1st, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund brought litigation against the Tennessee comptroller. The LDF's lawsuit alleges that the comptroller's actions overstepped authority and violates both the equal protection clause of the US Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution by, "Trying to take over Mason's finances without proper justification, and because most of the town's leadership and residents are African-American." After an emergency hearing on April 6th, I asked then Vice Mayor Rivers, what would happen if the court cited with the comptroller?

Vice Mayor Rivers: I'm positive that we won't go that route, but just by chance, because of the question, then we'll have to do what we have to do. It means that we will struggle, it means that it will be hard for us, but we're going to survive this.

Melissa Harris-Perry: After both sides filed post-hearing legal briefs, the judge made her decision on April 14th. In that decision, the judge refused to grant Mason's motion for an injunction which would've prevented the comptroller's takeover. The judge said that Tennessee law granted the state, "Broad authority to take corrective control over local governments." In a statement after the ruling, Comproller Mumpower said--

Jason Mumpower: I appreciate the judge's decision. Our office's interest has always been the restoration of the town's financial health and improved financial management. We will continue to work with Mason. The citizens and taxpayers of Mason deserve a financially sound government that is set up for success.

Otis Sanford: What I hope is that going forward they cooperate with each other and get the finances where it needs to be, prove to not just Ford, but everybody else with a stake in what's going to happen up there in this community in the next five years or less, that there are some investments to be made there, and this town can prosper. I really hope that that happens.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Like Otis Sanford, John Marshall also hopes to see cooperation and hopes to see his town prosper.

John Marshall: I feel sorry for the current administration. It is true that they inherited a lot of these problems, but they're pretty heavy problems. I'm personally hoping they can work out a solution, they can retain our identity as Mason and yet get the help that we need to dig out of this hole.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Since the court's decision, lawyers representing Mason say they will continue to pursue legal recourse until, "A satisfactory conclusion is reached, which preserves the sovereignty of its elected leadership and complies with all laws and regulations regarding its finances."

Gloria Sweet-Love: We want the good citizens all the world to know that Mason is struggling, that Mason is trying to do the right thing, that Mason does matter.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Yes, Mason does matter, and we've got an update for you with regards to the lawsuit. Back in early May, the NAACP declared victory and announced they'd reached a settlement. The settlement meant Mason would avoid a state takeover. A statement released by the NAACP's General Counsel, Janette McCarthy Wallace, reads, in part, "This is a victory for the town of Mason and beyond. The state government attempted to take over a Black town, and they miserably failed. They had no right to take over Mason, so we took them to court and we won. This settlement is a significant victory for all those who believe in justice and fairness."

A big thank you to everyone who contributed to this story. Former Vice Mayor, Virginia Rivers, and President of the Tennessee State Conference NAACP, Gloria Sweet-Love, for sharing Mason's story. Otis Sanford, political columnist for The Daily Memphian and a journalism professor at the University of Memphis, and of course also to John Marshall for all the historical context and insights provided.

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