Any review of the political year 2025 cannot escape the unique prevalence of the Marie Feagins saga.
Feagins, it will be recalled, began the year still serving as superintendent of the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) system, a post she had held but a scant few months. But she was holding on to that job by her fingertips, having been put on notice in December by a MSCS board majority that it wanted her gone.
The news struck most observers without warning, though tensions between the superintendent and the board had been building quietly but ominously almost as soon as she had begun to assume the reins of office.
And the impact of the fissure would spread quickly to other organs of government, not only in Memphis and Shelby County but in Nashville, where officials of the Republican-dominated state government reacted in outrage to what they considered further evidence of what they already viewed as ideological irresponsibility in Memphis self-governance and indifference to state authority.
When the MSCS board voted by a 6-3 margin in mid-January to sever ties with Feagins and appoint Roderick Richmond as an interim leader, it cited a bill of particulars that ranged from charges of mismanagement to dishonesty in communications with the board to accepting a grant without board approval to, finally, a catchall count of “engaging in conduct detrimental to the school district.” The overall indictment seemed sketchy at best.
What was oddest about the whole imbroglio was that Feagins’ impressively stout support base ranged from conservatives, who saw her as a foe of administrative privilege, to inner-city residents at large, who sensed that she had streetwise sympathies.
She had Mick Wright and Justin J. Pearson both defending her.
Feagins came across as an all-purpose disrupter, and even as she forged ahead with litigation to restore her superintendency, she was heady enough to launch a campaign for Shelby County mayor against an existing field of established local politicians.
Meanwhile, prevailing sentiment against the school board’s moves resulted in action both in the legislature and on the county commission to conflate the formerly staggered terms of board members so that all board seats were up for review on the 2026 election ballot.
Crime continued to be an issue locally, though apparently reliable statistics showed the rate of violent offenses to be dropping, even before the Trump administration and Governor Bill Lee combined to impose a Memphis Safe Task Force regime on the city, National Guardsmen and all.
The two mayors differed in their responses, with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris filing suit against the intrusion and Memphis Mayor Paul Young opting for a policy of diplomatic coexistence with the occupiers. Though the Young strategy has been reasonably nimble, he finds himself the target of leaders in the Hispanic community who have railed against MPD’s cooperation with ICE.
The aforementioned Justin J. Pearson spent much of the first half of 2025 inveighing against the environmental dangers of the local xAI monolith before taking the pivotal step of launching a campaign for Congress against the 9th District’s venerable incumbent, Steve Cohen, that could prove to be the most expensive and watched political race in Memphis history.
Cohen continued to use his seniority to bring project after project to his district — the most notable being the new Kings’ Crossing bridge, the largest pork any congressional leader has ever brought to Tennessee. The agile Pearson made himself known at the announcement event, grabbing a chair from the audience and inviting himself on stage.
More fun and games expected to come.