While there is no one grassroots organization putting a ton of effort into this specific goal, this summer brought numerous protests and sit-ins using anti-police momentum. Nevertheless, there is a huge list of petition co-signers of big educational organizations and leaders in the city, including BRIDGES, a non-profit educational program that I work at in the summer.

The whole Memphis non-profit sector is very involved which (while problematic in its own right) really helps considering the power they have in the city. BRIDGES for example enrolls hundreds of students each year, everyone has heard of it. Furthermore, students in these programs have organized around this issue with initiatives like the one titled “Counselors not Cops” (started by one of my students) which advocates for the removal of school resource officers and the addition of school counselors and social workers, which are few and far between in Memphis.

Here, you can read the entire petition: https://tn.chalkbeat.org/2020/6/15/21291977/more-than-100-memphis-nonprofit-leaders-call-for-city-to-fund-education-and-criminal-justice-reforms

Below is a screenshot of the signatories of said petition.