Knoxville to celebrate Juneteenth with these events around the city knoxnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from knoxnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
God bless ya, I love this town and I ll do anything for it. Author: WBIR Staff Updated: 11:28 PM EDT April 26, 2021
KNOX COUNTY, Tenn. The Knox County Commission on Monday honored former WBIR anchor Russell Biven for his many years of service to the East Tennessee community.
Commissioner Justin Biggs read the resolution honoring Russell on the occasion of his retirement from WBIR, expressing the county s gratitude for his dedication to the community and the many lives he has touched and inspired over the years.
Biggs spoke of Russell s career, Volunteer spirit and history of community service as a public figure, including how his annual Summer Clayfest Tournament has raised nearly $1 million for the Helen Ross McNabb Center.
The COVID-19 pandemic is not the first - and it will probably not be the last - challenge endured by the funeral home. Jarnigan & Son is the only Black-owned business operating today to survive urban removal, a series of construction projects from 1959-74 that saw Black homes, churches and storefronts razed to make room for the Knoxville Civic Coliseum and the James White Parkway interstate loop. The impact of the upheaval is still being reckoned with today.
Bourne, 74 and president of Jarnigan & Son for four decades, has been to more burials than he can count. He attributes the business’ longevity to its guiding principles: treating everyone with dignity, giving back to the community and never turning anyone away.
We have to get back to nonviolence.
That is the message Knoxville s Rev. Harold Middlebrook chose to use in remembering his friend as the nation celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
From his home in Knoxville, Middlebrook spoke with Knox News to discuss his relationship with the late civil rights hero and continuing King s mission in a climate filled with racial tensions and political strife.
Middlebrook says that King s legacy was one of bringing people of all backgrounds to the table, even when they disagreed. He achieved change in a way that he feels is not taking place today, especially after this month s deadly riot at the Capitol.