NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TN Tribune) — The community advocate and founder of Moms Over Murder is getting married to the man who accepted her April Fools Day proposal last year.
Clemmie Greenlee and David Baugh are to be wed by the Rev. William Green, pastor of the Tabernacle of Glory, in Hadley Park, 1037 28th Ave. North, on Saturday April. 2.
The 3 p.m. nuptials are 24 hours after a balloon release in the park to remember the April 1 birthday of Greenlee’s son, Rodriquez. He died in East Nashville on Dec. 8, 2003 at age 29. “Detectives said he was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Greenlee explained in the Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church meeting room where she proposed to Baugh.
The happy fiancé “thought the wedding would be in a church or at the courthouse,” Greenlee said Friday while describing how she and Baugh would tie the knot. Invitations aren’t necessary, Greenlee said. However, she anticipates food vendors, pop-up shops and a bounce house during the wedding in Metro’s park. Greenlee has a city permit to use the park and there will be accommodations for a WQQK FM, 92Q, remote broadcast. Baugh says in the event of inclement weather, “We have our office. Her bridal shower was at the office.” His bachelor party is to be in Madison after the balloon release.
As for their honeymoon, Baugh said, “We’re heading to New Orleans the next day. That’s where she’s starting another anti-sex trafficking house. She started housing in the past and they asked her to come down.”
The happy couple’s story is far from that of the American actress who married a prince. This is a love story of truth and absolution. Greenlee and Baugh speak openly about their past. Now in their 60s, they met when living with parents on Eastland Avenue off Gallatin Road. They went in different directions. Both know rough streets, crime and paid debts to society. Their lives changed. They encourage change for others.
They’d lost track of each other for 20 years, but then, while Baugh was locked up, he realized a chance to find her. Greenlee’s niece, Chiquta Greenlee, was filling commissary vending machines. David saw her and called her name to make sure it was her. Chiquta gave Baugh her aunt’s phone number. Greenlee had been looking for him. He called her Nov. 24, 2019, nearly five years after her nephew was murdered in 2014. That prompted her to form MOMs, a haven for mothers grieving murdered children.
Greenlee and Baugh announced their wedding plans during phone calls as she was changing their utility bills from an apartment to a house. She anticipated getting their house keys before the balloon release.
The Greenlee Baugh nuptials aren’t the first wedding in Hadley Park, she said; “It is the second African-American wedding at Hadley Park.” It’s the first since 1996.
Their ceremony is “open to the community,” Greenlee said. “It’s to bring love, healing and redemption to Nashville.
