At the back of Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken in the rural West Tennessee town of Mason, two pots of baked beans heat slowly on a large silver stove.
Just a few steps away, Leslie Maclin prepares a basket of chicken for the deep fryer as a server attends to customers. Gus’s is a beloved Black-owned family restaurant that’s been around for generations. Maclin co-runs it with her sister.
“It was my great-granddad, then my granddad, then my uncles,” she explains. “So, we’re the fourth generation.”
The idea of the chicken spot started when Maclin’s great-grandparents came up with a recipe that everyone loved. The family has since attracted customers from across the world and started franchising around the country.
“I can’t give you the recipe,” she says. “But I’m not sure what makes it so special.”
Blake Farmer WPLN NewsA server at Gus’s Fried Chicken in Mason grabs a pile of napkins at the front of the kitchen as Leslie Maclin, back, prepares food for customers.
Mason is a majority-Black town that’s a little under an hour outside of Memphis. It’s about two square miles with less than 1,500 people. Some of them are descendants of enslaved people who were held in West Tennessee.
The town is quiet. There’s no library. There’s no school district. There are a limited amount of jobs in the area.
But Mason does have a rich Black history. Attorney Van Turner, who’s representing the town in a lawsuit against the Tennessee comptroller, says that history is at risk of being erased.
“It’s been around since 1855. That was ten years before the Civil War ended and slavery ended,” Turner says. “And so this town has been a safe space for African Americans for a number of years.”
NEW: Mason, Tenn. elected officials have filed suit against the Tennessee Comptroller, claiming plans for a financial takeover of the rural, majority Black town ahead of Ford Motor Co's $5.6B investment are illegal and unconstitutional.
https://t.co/NHW9FcZpgD @TNLookout— Anita Wadhwani (@anitawadhwani) April 3, 2022
Mason’s finances were recently taken over by the state comptroller’s office. Local officials believe the intervention was too extreme. But it’s also part of a larger pattern of white leaders taking over majority-Black cities.
Mason has spent years in the red with a bad cash flow. Until recently, city officials had been using money from its utility department to finance general expenses. Turner says those financial woes trace back to the town’s previous, mostly white administrations.
A town clerk pleaded guilty to stealing taxpayer funds in 2011. It happened under former Mayor David Ward. Then nearly all of Mason’s leaders resigned after fraud allegations in 2015. Ward died the next year.
“If there is any point in time that the comptroller should have stepped in to give us a plan and to put his foot down, it would have been under the administration of David Ward, who was a white male,” Turner says.
It’s only now that the town is under a majority-Black leadership, he adds, that the state cracked down on Mason’s financial woes.
Tennessee’s current comptroller, Jason Mumpower, was elected to his position in 2021.
Damon Mitchell WPLN NewsA sign welcomes residents and visitors to Mason.
“This is not only a fight for what’s right,” Turner says “It’s a fight for preserving history and for making sure that we don’t see this pattern happen again throughout this nation.”
Across the country, at least 19 states have laws allowing them to take over down-and-out cities. Those laws have been tested in majority-Black towns like Robersonville, North Carolina, and Camden, New Jersey.
In Michigan, 11 cities fell under the leadership of the state between 1990 and 2017. University of Michigan Professor Sara Hughes says the takeovers weren’t primarily driven by financial hardship: They were driven by race. It’s a pattern she’s seen across the country.
“There are cities in Michigan that had similar levels of financial conditions, similar levels of financial stress, but different demographic distributions, and they hadn’t been taken over by the state,” she says.
Courtesy University of Michigan Sara Hughes is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan.
A spokesperson for the comptroller told WPLN News that attorneys have advised them not to answer questions about Mason because of pending litigation. But in court documents, the comptroller’s office says it doesn’t have discriminatory intent. It also says Mumpower wants to bring the town to a good financial place.
Hughes says while it’s impossible to read people’s minds, undeclared biases are a real thing.
“There’s work that showed that leaders and elected officials are more likely to see corruption, and mismanagement, and incompetence in Black leaders versus white leaders,” she adds.
In Mason’s case, the comptroller first asked the town to voluntarily give up its charter, meaning it would be dissolved into the white-led county government. He sent letters to Mason residents encouraging them to ask their elected officials to let that happen. The state stepped in after Mason leaders refused to dissolve the town’s charter.
But Mason’s attorneys say in court filings that the majority-white town of Jellico, which was in an arguably worse financial situation, had never been asked to do the same. Turner says that’s an issue.
“It’s not in good faith. It’s not with the intent to make corrections and to improve the town,” Turner explains. “It’s really to punish the town and get the town out of the way.”
Mason is expected to see an influx of economic development, thanks to an investment from Ford Motor Company just outside the town.
Earlier this month, a Nashville judge refused to temporarily stop Mason’s takeover but the case is still playing out in court. As that happens, says Turner, the town is negotiating with the comptroller’s office to try to settle the dispute.
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