Paint and polish can only gloss over the problems of the Shelby County Jail, which is housed in an antiquated building unfit for its present use.
That’s what I wrote for a front-page story in the Memphis Press-Scimitar on July 19, 1975. It summed up my almost-three-hour, unannounced tour of every floor and cell block in the old Shelby County Jail at 150 Washington Avenue.
The conditions of the jail were unsurprising. They had been described in a two-week federal court trial, and the facility’s squalor and oppressive atmosphere suggested the trial testimony was an understatement…