J. Wyeth Chandler

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Wyeth Chandler (born circa 1930; died November 2004) served as mayor of Memphis, Tennessee from 1972 to 1982. Chandler succeeded the controversial Henry Loeb, who battled local sanitation workers during a strike that brought Martin Luther King, Jr. to Memphis in April 1968. (See Memphis Sanitation Strike). This violence-ridden episode in the city's history resulted in King's death by assassin James Earl Ray on April 4. Chandler spent much of his tenure dealing with the economic and social fallout from the strike and the killing, as the incidents gave the city a bad name among business and charitable interests for some years.

After resigning from office to accept a judgeship, Chandler was succeeded by two interims (including the first-ever African-American, J. O. Patterson, Jr.) and then finally by Richard Hackett, who served from 1983 until 1991.

[edit] External links

• Memphis Flyer eulogy