By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Under the dim lighting of the Tennessee State Museum exhibition room, standing with his back straight, his arms crossed, and a cancer awareness ribbon on his lapel hangs a portrait of a local civil rights legend and former congressman John Lewis. He grew up attending one of the 4,978 ‘Rosenwald Schools’ founded by Julius Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington that helped change the quality of education available for Black children across America. Lewis’s photo portrait is displayed on a corner of the room overlooking the rest of the exhibit assembled by Andrew Feiler, photographer…
Author: Logan Langlois
By Logan Langlois HERMITAGE, TN — Sitting proudly at the end of a long windy road, next to a harbor of the naturally beautiful Percy Priest Lake, sits the Black-owned and locally-beloved restaurant, Papa Turney’s Old Fashion BBQ. A venture founded by local entrepreneur Mike Turney, who opened the establishment as a food truck ten years ago, with the mission of cooking Bar-B-Que right by utilizing old fashion recipes and techniques. Ever since opening his first food truck, Turney has embraced the philosophy of cooking food right instead of easy and treating customers like family. When these standards are met…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE TN — People and families packed themselves inside the McGruder Family Resource Center Saturday, Jan. 21 at 9 a.m. to participate in the expungement clinic hosted by lead organizer Judge Rachel L. Bell. The purpose of the clinic is to help those who come with criminal records and qualify for expungement begin a fresh chapter in their lives. The outreach also works in connecting people with other services often needed by those attempting to re-integrate into society such as food, hygiene supplies and assistance with securing employment. “Most of the people that are here today are…
By Logan Langlois MURFREESBORO, TN — Not many 13-year-olds spend most, if not all, of their free time booking small concerts around their town for local bands they’re not even in. But as long as he’s been a teenager that’s exactly what Joseph Glisson has been doing. Now having just recently celebrated his 18th birthday, Glisson is one of the go-to-guys when it comes to booking concerts across Murfreesboro. His main stomping grounds are in alternative music spaces such as punk or metal, though he’s recently made a splash in the seemingly unrelated spaces of EDM and rap. After breaking…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — With clothes, hot food, and hygiene items in hand and their locally iconic ‘shower bus’ (which the organization built from scratch) now sparingly used, the local community outreach program Shower The People has been adjusting the methods of their community service during the coldest winter days. “It obviously affects… the number of people that are even gonna come out of their tent once it gets dark at night, so we’re not able to engage the number of people we typically do,” said Meredith Jaulin Co-founder and Executive Director of Shower The People. “If it…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — On January 9, Fisk University, in partnership with Nashville Mayor John Cooper, held an event celebrating plans to open an Incubation and Innovation Center named after recently-passed local Black community mentor Darrell S. Freeman Sr. The Center is to be located within the long-standing Burriss Hall and its goal is to carry on the inspirational legacy of the entrepreneurial titan, who after building his own tech company, Zycron Inc., and selling it for millions of dollars, was revered for his giving back to the Black community within Nashville and its surrounding areas. “Having Fisk…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Joshua Lipscomb, known by most by his stage name Sir Joshua Black, has recently been opening up regarding the details of his $450,000 settlement following his lawsuit against the Nashville Fire Department. He filed the suit after what he claims were attempts to suppress his first amendment right to freedom of speech, in the form of a 16-day suspension as punishment for a tweet he made criticizing Nashville City Council. The suspension came even though none of his social media accounts identified him as a member of the Nashville Fire Department and all tweets…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — President Joe Biden has released his economic plan for Tennessee, as well as a recap of accomplishments made by his administration since taking office in 2020. These accomplishments include a shrinking unemployment rate, 206,000 new jobs, and 179,004 new business filings in Tennessee since December 2020, with bigger plans for the state scheduled further this year. When President Biden was sworn into office two years ago, the unemployment rate was 6.3 percent, 9 million people were out of work, and hundreds of thousands of small businesses were closing their doors. Today, the Biden administration…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Nashville experienced a dramatic arctic front this past December with temperatures falling below zero, wind chills in the negative double digits, and the state of Tennessee receiving a surprising amount of snowfall. These upcoming months are looking to be no different, with temperatures predicted to continue to stay within 30°F and 44°F in January and 33°F and 48°F in February, including incoming rainy and snow days. Under these predictions, several community outreach groups centered around homelessness have been gearing up to provide for those who are most affected by extreme temperature drops. Cathay Jennings,…
By Logan Langlois MURFREESBORO, TN — Local music scenes taking place in the surrounding areas of the internationally famous ‘Music City’ often get overlooked in local reporting. In these spaces around Nashville, more alternative expression is allowed and even becomes treasured by fiercely loyal communities in the counterculture. One such community which has also seen an explosion in popularity recently is the Murfreesboro punk scene. This new exposure has brought about a new wave of rabid audience members and bands fueling the audience’s mosh pits, but the boom has surprisingly not led to an increase in venues hosting concerts. In…