NASHVILLE, Tenn – The voices of Black North Nashville elders were celebrated at the Tennessee State Museum recently, as their program Lunch and Learn featured the locally produced and widely celebrated podcast We Are North Nashville (WANN) in the Museum’s Digital Learning Center. The night featured a panel hosted by the lead curator of social history at the Tennessee State Museum and current president of the Inter-Museum Council of Nashville, Tranae Chatman, as well as WANN artist and project lead M. Simone Boyd and executive producer Andrea Tudhope. The panel also included two of the elders featured in the podcast itself, such as architect and TSU alumnus Melvin Gill, and one of the first students to integrate Nashville Schools at Jones Elementary in North Nashville as one of the Nashville 16, Barbara Jean Watson.
As the panel took turns speaking about what went into making the podcast itself, Boyd said that it is difficult to determine when work on the production began, as she has had long-standing relationships with many of the elder interviewees through family friendships and being mutual North Nashville community members. Tudhope said that a core driving force behind her and Boyd putting together the podcast was that they wanted to make sure the perspectives of these elders are heard while the opportunity is still available. She said that society at large can often take for granted the people around them who have lived the history we talk about and that their perspective provides valuable insight that has not been recorded in textbooks.
“We are in difficult times, and we have people who have lived through difficult times that are still with us,” Boyd said. “That is such a treasure and such a gift, and we need to hold that very gently and with a lot of reverence.”
When the panel gave time to the elders to speak on their experiences growing up in North Nashville, Watson recounted that during her time integrating into Jones Elementary in her childhood, her family faced constant threats of violence. She said that one night her backyard was firebombed and that afterward, her family’s household was a hotbed of NAACP activity. Gill also recalled the time he saw a cross-burning when he was 6 years old and the time he spent participating in sit-ins during the Nashville civil rights movement.
Boyd said that despite this adversity, however, Watson was still at the top of her class in education, tutored other students, and still found the time to be a star school athlete. However, Boyd said Watson will never talk about it herself.
When asked how they found the strength to get through their most difficult struggles against racist adversity at such a young age, both Watson and Gill said they were largely able to do so with their heads held high because of the vibrant and supportive North Nashvillian Black community that surrounded them.
Watson said that throughout her time attending school, the Black community around her would take extra care in talking to her while she walked to and from school. She said neighbors would take extra care to say hello and pay her compliments while she walked and that the other mothers around the neighborhood would give her mother frequent updates regarding neighborhood and city news. Gill said in the face of all his hardships as well, he could recall always feeling the togetherness of the Black community around him who shared in his struggle.
Further updates regarding We Are North Nashville can be found on their website wearenorthnashville.org.
