After being classified as a taxing district in 1880 after a grievous loss of population due to the yellow fever epidemic, Memphis regained home rule in 1893.
Patterson, Jr., had previously served as mayor on an interim basis, and is considered the first African American in the position.
In recent years, there has been discussion of the potential of a merger of Shelby County and Memphis into a metropolitan government, similar to that in Nashville.
The senior members established a funeral home, and built a broad network in the black community.
The western three-fourths of the city, including downtown, forms the core of the 9th District, which has been represented by Democrat Steve Cohen since 2007.
Eastern Shelby County is reckoned as the most Republican area of the state outside of the state's traditional Republican heartland of East Tennessee; the area's conservative white voters began splitting their tickets as early as the 1950s and switched parties outright in the late 1960s.
When eastern Shelby County was moved from the 7th to the 8th as a result of redistricting in 2013, it turned the 8th into one of the most Republican districts in the South and the nation; it has a PVI of R+19.
Established in 1930, the Memphis City Beautiful Commission is the oldest beautification project in the United States.