Close Menu
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    • Home
    • About Us
    • Digital Subscription
    • Advertisement
    • Contact Us
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    The Tennessee TribuneThe Tennessee Tribune
    Advertise With Us
    • Home
      • COVID-19 Resource Center
        • Dr. Henry Louis Gates’ PSA Radio
      • Featured
    • News
      • State
      • Local
      • National/International News
      • Global
      • Business
        • Commentary
        • Finance
        • Local Business
      • Investigative Stories
        • Affordable Housing
        • DCS Investigation
        • Gentrification
    • Editorial
      • National Politics
      • Local News
      • Local Editorial
      • Political Editorial
      • Editorial Cartoons
      • Cycle of Shame
    • Community
      • History
      • Tennessee
        • Chattanooga
        • Clarksville
        • Knoxville
        • Memphis
      • Public Notices
      • Women
        • Let’s Talk with Ms. June
    • Education
      • College
        • American Baptist College
        • Belmont University
        • Fisk
        • HBCU
        • Meharry
        • MTSU
        • University of Tennessee
        • TSU
        • Vanderbilt
      • Elementary
      • High School
    • Lifestyle
      • Art
      • Auto
      • Tribune Travel
      • Entertainment
        • 5 Questions With
        • Books
        • Events
        • Film Review
        • Local Entertainment
      • Family
      • Food
        • Drinks
      • Health & Wellness
      • Home & Garden
      • Featured Books
    • Religion
      • National Religion
      • Local Religion
      • Obituaries
        • National Obituaries
        • Local Obituaries
      • Faith Commentary
    • Sports
      • MLB
        • Sounds
      • NBA
      • NCAA
      • NFL
        • Predators
        • Titans
      • NHL
      • Other Sports
      • Golf
      • Professional Sports
      • Sports Commentary
      • Metro Sports
    • Media
      • Video
      • Photo Galleries
      • Take 10
      • Trending With The Tribune
    • Classified
    • Obituaries
      • Local Obituaries
      • National Obituaries
    The Tennessee TribuneThe Tennessee Tribune
    Art

    Why the National Museum of African American Music Should Be in Downtown Nashville

    Tribune StaffBy Tribune StaffDecember 18, 2016Updated:January 10, 2017No Comments7 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Telegram Pinterest Tumblr Reddit Email
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email
    Little of beauty has America given the world…; the human spirit in this new world has expressed itself in vigor and ingenuity rather than in beauty. And so by fateful chance the Negro folk-song—the rhythmic cry of the slave—stands today not simply as the sole American music, but as the most beautiful expression of human experience born this side the seas. It has been neglected, it has been, and is, half despised, and above all it has been persistently mistaken and misunderstood; but notwithstanding, it still remains as the singular spiritual heritage of the nation and the greatest gift of the Negro people. (W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Sorrow Songs,” The Souls of Black Folk (1903))

    The gifts are many of musics created and creatively expressed by Black folks and shared with the world. Hardly any of the various forms and genres of the musics are understood, thus fully and appropriately appreciated, in keeping with the expansive reach and ravenous intensities of their consumption. And across the centuries of their creation, performance, and consumption, no institution has been created and sustained that has been devoted to providing experience-enhanced understandings of the musics in their full historical sweep; of the socio-cultural contexts that conditioned the life-sustaining significances of the emergence, performance, and consumption of the musics for people of African descent in the United States of America; of the extraordinary impacts of the musics on other peoples in this country and elsewhere, on their music creation and consumption…until now. Until the creation of The National Museum of African American Music. In Nashville.

    How fitting for Nashville, Tennessee, the city from which, Du Bois noted in “The Sorrow Songs,” the Fisk Jubilee Singers “sang the slave songs so deeply into the world’s heart that it can never wholly forget them again.” There would be even more music in Nashville from the descendants of enslaved people of African descent, music that has altered the rhythmic harmonies of waves of sound so as to retune the harmonic vibrations of souls and the movements of feet and bodies. Ask those who know what it was like, back in the day, to be in attunement to the music in various stops along Jefferson Street. Ask those who know the significance of deep, soulful listening to the sonorities of Black music radiating to the southern and northern borders of the country, and well into the eastern and western portions of the country, from WLAC, one of the nation’s most powerful radio stations, into homes, automobiles, and new-fangled portable radios, and by way of special packages of records promoted on the airwaves that were purchased by mail-order from Randy’s Record Shop in Gallatin, TN, and Buckley’s Record Shop on Church Street.  How fitting for a city that is now known world-wide as “Music City USA.” Far too few who know this anticipate that the tag-line soon to be added to this moniker is “And, it ain’t all country!”

    The NMAAM will ensure that they come to know this. The NMAAM will ensure that all who enter its doors and immerse themselves in experiences of informed engagements with the musics, music-makers, music-performers, and the socio-historical contexts of the lives of those for whom the musics were and are of primary significance will come to understand.

    And where best can The NMAAM engage in this ongoing work of cultivating knowledge and understanding of musics that will be of historic significance? Where the opportunities for engagement are greatest, where millions already come on pilgrimages to sacred sites of musical engagement and learning: that is, in downtown Nashville where the cultivation of the city’s identity as a capital of musics of international importance is the business of the city.

    Of course, there are those who lament the relocation of The NMAAM from the intersection of Rosa Parks Boulevard and Jefferson Street, who lament the loss of The NMAAM as a monument to the historic importance of Jefferson Street to Black music in Nashville. But, here’s the catch: The NMAAM will not be a monument to the past. It will be, instead, an ongoing institution devoted to the cultivation and sharing, through immersive experiences, of critically informed understandings of historic and ongoing productions of musics by and about Black people in the United States of America and continuing historic influences on the musical experiences of others.

    Consider: Why was the Schermerhorn Symphony Center not built in Green Hills or Belle Meade? To be sure, because influential supporters of that venture were determined to alter the identity of Nashville as a city of music to be inclusive of European and Euro-American classical music by way of a world-class facility and world-class performances. Consider the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC: Why is this museum on The National Mall along with other federally-supported museums rather than situated on Georgia Avenue near Howard University? To be sure, in order to be readily accessible to the many millions who visit our nation’s capital yearly and partake of the various museum experiences available along the Mall. Consider the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial: Why is it situated among the several memorials along Independence Avenue in southwest Washington, DC (with MLK staring down the Thomas Jefferson Memorial directly across the water, I might add) rather than along Georgia Avenue in northwest Washington? Again, so as to be in the national and international mixes while altering the identity, and thereby the significance, of memorialized spaces in our nation’s capital. (And for those who might not be in the know, the official address of the King Memorial is 1964 Independence Avenue, SW! How is that for marking with new significance a location in our nation’s capital?)

    African American musics, performance and consumption, were once of great significance to life along Jefferson Street, but are quite less so today. And there are no indications of an impending renaissance that would bring back to the street the music life so revered by a declining few. There is no reviving of the past as present and future. Moreover, there is enormous danger to be suffered in living in the warming, but fading, glows of nostalgia. Let us know our history; but let us not become entrapped by enthrallment with what was done in the past. Rather, let us seek always to ask “What must we make of the challenges and opportunities of the present and future, some of which those who came before us did not—could not have—imagined?”

    Downtown Nashville is undergoing continuing, very substantial transformations as the city continues to enjoy the coming of new peoples in record-setting numbers. The city’s identity will change, as well. Fifth Avenue has become, indeed, “The Avenue of the Arts.” Further arts-enhancing developments are under way, more are planned, others not yet even anticipated. But, The NMAAM will be there, solidly positioned at the intersection of Broadway and Fifth Avenue to alter how current and future generations come to understand, identify, and identify with Nashville as, in the words of the Queen of England commending the Jubilee Singers more than a century ago, “a musical city.” Indeed. And, it ain’t all country! The NMAAM is coming to downtown…

    Lucius T. Outlaw (Jr.), Ph.D.
    Professor of Philosophy
    Professor of Human and Organizational Development, Peabody College
    Vanderbilt University
    Co-Chair, Storyline Committee, The NMAAM
    Ex Officio Member, Board of Directors, The NMAAM

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Email
    Tribune Staff

    Related Posts

    xAI Controversy Questions Black Leadership, Chamber Integrity

    May 8, 2025

    Lighting the Path: Celebrating 18 Years of Les Gemmes’ Literary Luncheon

    May 7, 2025

    500 people apply for WeGo jobs with hiring event Saturday

    May 4, 2025

    NASHVILLE PRIDE ANNOUNCES THE 2025 FESTIVAL ENTERTAINMENT LINEUP FEATURING KIM PETRAS, 4 NON BLONDES, BIG FREEDIA, JAKE WESLEY ROGERS, THE KNOCKS & DRAGONETTE PLUS MORE JUNE 27-29

    May 2, 2025

    Still G.I.N. Lounge by Dre and Snoop Opens, Bringing West Coast Vibe to Downtown

    May 1, 2025

    Nashville Honors 100th Birthday of Imam El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz with Interfaith Conference

    May 1, 2025

    Comments are closed.

    Business

    Target Boycotts and its Effect on Both Sides of the Black Dollar

    May 6, 2025

    FedEx to Launch FedEx Easy Returns at 3,000 Locations Across the US, Supported by Blue Yonder

    May 2, 2025

    Best Lawyers® Names Bailey, Hargrove, Haynes, and Stakely Lawyers of the Year

    April 24, 2025
    1 2 3 … 382 Next
    Education
    HBCU

    TSU Honors New Generation of Leaders at Spring Commencement Celebration

    By Emmanuel FreemanMay 8, 2025

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. – (TSU News Service)– In a celebration steeped in legacy and hope, Tennessee…

    Fisk University Honors the Class of 2025 with Baccalaureate and Commencement Ceremonies

    April 26, 2025

    TSU’s Spring Commencement Ceremonies to Feature Inspiring Keynote Speakers

    April 24, 2025

    TSU’s Dr. Robbie K. Melton Named a 2025 Leading Woman in AI

    April 24, 2025
    The Tennessee Tribune
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    • About Us
    • Digital Subscription
    • Store
    • Advertise With Us
    • Contact
    © 2025 The Tennessee Tribune - Site Designed by No Regret Media.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

    Our Spring Sale Has Started

    You can see how this popup was set up in our step-by-step guide: https://wppopupmaker.com/guides/auto-opening-announcement-popups/