By Logan Langlois
NASHVILLE, TN — Once the cultural mecca of Black Nashville, Jefferson Street: from humble beginnings to put Music City on the international map. The land of North Nashville was platted three years before the Civil War began in 1858 and would host several camps that held “contraband,” the label of enslaved peoples in Union-occupied Confederate territory. Camps would be located around Fort Gillam at both Jefferson Street and Salem Street, formerly 18th Street. Following the end of the Civil War, Nashville’s Black population gradually migrated from an area previously known as Black Bottom near Capitol Hill to North Nashville and Germantown because “the immigrant community in this area was receptive to a moderate influx of Black citizens,” according to the Historical Marker Database.
Fisk University was established on Jefferson Street in 1866, using Fort Gillman as its main building, with the goal of educating previously enslaved people after being liberated. Meharry Medical College would later be established in 1876, followed by Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal School for Negroes in 1912, renamed Tennessee Agricultural & Industrial State Normal College in 1925, and currently named Tennessee State University. The opening of these institutions helped cement Jefferson Street as the intellectual heart of Black Nashville.
In 1912 public land-grant Tennessee A&I opened at the Western Terminus of Jefferson Street and would see a population boost along with Fisk Black veterans returning from the First World War. During the Jim Crow Era, retail and service-oriented businesses flourished along Jefferson Street. In 1940 it would be called the “main artery” of the Black business district. After the Second World War, wealthy and middle-class members of Nashville’s Black community lived on the Jefferson Street corridor. The community had the reputation of being one of the few places Black entrepreneurs had the opportunity to build successful businesses and Black patrons could shop without discrimination.
Jefferson Street originated Nashville’s title as Music City, through early Fisk musical ambassadors, the Jubilee Singers, who rose to fame beginning in 1871. The 1930s would see Jefferson Street’s entertainment boom. The name was shortened to “Jeff Street” by many who frequented it and hosted everything from intimate Chicago-style “speakeasies” to grand nightclubs and pool halls. The street hosted legendary acts such as Duke Ellington, Nat ‘King’ Cole, B.B. King, Aretha Franklin, Fats Domino, and Jimi Hendrix.
During the Civil Rights Era, Jefferson Street became host to many activism efforts, including sit-ins led by Fisk Students John Lewis, Diane Nash, Jim Zwerg, and Marion Barry in 1960. In the Spring of the same year, almost 4,000 activists marched on City Hall through Jefferson Street following the house bombing of civil rights attorney Z. Alexander Looby. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Fisk and praised local activists, and Nashville would be the first major southern city to desegregate public facilities.
In April 1967, protesters marched Jefferson Street following speeches by Stokely Carmichael, where vandalism and arson occurred around Fisk and Tennessee A&I. More unrest broke out following Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in April 1968, resulting in 4,000 National Guardsmen being called. However, a game-changing blow would be dealt at the construction of Interstate 40 which cut through the heart of Nashville, disconnecting neighborhoods and streets, and leading to the demolition of legendary clubs like the Del Morocco.
Construction would also cause the demolition of 626 homes and 128 businesses, including 16 blocks of Jefferson Street. Eighty percent of Black-owned businesses were lost. Nashville State Representative Harold Love said, “All we ended up with was a service station and a drive-in market. We fought hard to no avail. The feeling of community was broken.”
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