By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — The first man to win the Country Music Association’s male vocalist award two years in a row, one of the first Black members of the Grand Ole Opry, and one of the most successful country music singers ever, Charley Pride’s legacy befits legend in Music City. At the time of his death from complications from contracting COVID-19 at the age of 86, Pride would have 29 No. 1 country hits, 52 Top 10s, and twelve gold albums. Pride would see himself inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000, though his legacy…
Author: Logan Langlois
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — “Beyond the Bars’’ is a first-of-its-kind, app-enabled escape room that puts participants in the shoes of one of the 80 million Americans navigating today’s already tumultuous job market with an arrest or charge on their record. In the escape room that debuted Sunday at Austin Texas’s SXSW, participants are charged with navigating the various pitfalls that prevent people from securing life-changing employment. Ken Oliver, the man who took the SXSW stage to announce Beyond the Bars’ debut alongside his employer Checkr, said Beyond the Bars is meant to build empathy for workers who are…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — On March 7, 1965, the late Reverend, Civil Rights Leader, and future U.S. House Representative John Lewis marched just a few feet from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. As the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) he walked in front of the 600-person march alongside the demonstration’s leader Hosea Williams of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The march protesting for the voting rights of African Americans was met at the end of the bridge-named after a Confederate general and reputed Ku Klux Klan…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Low-wage citizens united to fight for a better life Saturday by marching in the streets with the Poor People’s Campaign. The march was the official launch of the group’s ‘40 Weeks of Action’ initiative, during which the organization plans to host community action events every week up until the 2024 presidential election. Nashville was just one of the 30 state capitals nationwide that marched with the Poor People’s Campaign on Saturday. Tri-Chair of the Tennessee Poor People’s Campaign Gordon Myres said the goal of the march, and of the PPC, is to impact policy…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Oz Arts Nashville welcomed electro dance performance Rave Lucid from the international dance company Mazelfreten’s last weekend or one of the only two stops made by the young company in the United States. The dance number paid tribute to the French electro craze that arose in the nightclub scene of the early to mid-2000s. The dance composed by world champion Electro dancer Brandon “Honey” Maseleand and French hip-hop-trained dancer Laura “Nala” Defreten is meant to lull the audience into a lucid dream from which they will never wake up. OZ Executive Director Mark Murphy…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — The Memorial Foundation recently announced seven young Tennessean social justice leaders as members of its third Social Justice Fellows Program cohort. The eight-week-long program has 50 participants in total from across the nation and is taking place virtually. In these workshops, participants have been meeting together to network and share personal experiences and ideas. The program also invites special guests with much experience in civil rights to teach the lessons they’ve learned, in the hopes of helping sharpen a strong leadership class ready to fight for social justice for years to come. A prominent…
By Logan Langlois MURFREESBORO, TN — Middle Tennessee State University has recently launched a PAprogram that is partnering up with medical facilities in many of Tennessee’s rural areas. Program Director Dr. Marie Patterson said many of these rural Tennessee clinics have been experiencing hurdles in providing medical care to their communities, one of which is understaffing. She said that many of these community’s face difficulty with both medical access and education, with citizens much of the time unable to make the long-distance travels that are required for them to receive advanced, or sometimes even basic medical care. “We’re trying to…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — On February 25, 1946, a Black woman named Gladys Stephenson returned to the Castner-Knott department store in downtown Columbia to pick up the radio she had taken to be repaired. She had been told to come back several times by the shop, always with a higher price attached to the repair, and once so the shop would buy the radio back from a different customer they had sold it to. This time, she brought her son James Stephenson, an American naval veteran, upon which the two received the radio at around double the original…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — Celebrating their 22nd year of regularly meeting to discuss books, sisterhood, and volunteering for their community, the Women of Focus Book Club is still going strong in providing community support after having read an estimated 264 books and counting. Established in January 2003 in the beauty salon of book club co-founder Veronica Wiley, its name was adopted from Wiley’s salon Women of Focus Hair Studio and has since offered its support to both the women and charities around their community. Wiley said when Women of Focus are not reading, they are engaged in volunteer…
By Logan Langlois NASHVILLE, TN — SB1738, a bill that has been criticized as a threat to the rights of trans foster children by civil rights groups such as the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP), was passed on second consideration and referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee in late January. This bill introduced by District 32 Senator Paul Rose (R-Lauderdale, Shelby, Tipton) would prohibit “the Department of Children’s Services from requiring an adoptive or foster parent to support a policy on sexual orientation or gender identity that conflicts with the parent’s sincerely held religious or moral beliefs.” “Honestly I was mortified,”…