The road I took had a section full of some very scary folks, and some not so nice homes. Bad enough that I ran a couple of lights when the locals were eyeing me and my rental car. Old Caddy with 4 space saver spare tires and some bad attitudes inside.
Pickwick, Collierville, and Germantown all upscale, and we took some cool back roads with Civil War markers. Sorry, but Memphis is a crap town that is pure ugly.
When I took doubles training in Blytheville, AR back in the mid 90's it was very similar. Ugly, lots of blatant racism, but good food and friendly people, as long as you were White. It gets old being called a Yankee all the time too.