Shortly after the end of the Civil War, formerly enslaved African Americans established and settled Promise Land in Dickson County. They came from farms around Charlotte, Tennessee, and from Cumberland Furnace, the nearby ironworks town. Some of the first settlers, like Ed Vanleer and John Nesbitt served with the United States Colored Troops during the war. The town remained independent, and actually flourished through the Jim Crow Era.

Serina Gilbert is a descendant of those original inhabitants, and with the Promise Land Heritage Association, helps keep the stories of this historic community alive. And she is co-author of the book From the Fiery Furnace to the Promise Land: Stories of a Tennessee Reconstruction Community, which collects many of these tales, handed down through the generations. Her collaborator is esteemed historian and TSU professor Dr. Learotha Williams Jr., who joins her in conversation with Demetria.

Plus, after the interview, an audio story featuring sounds and voices from the annual Promise Land festival — essentially a big family reunion — produced by Banner managing editor Andrea Tudhope, which originally aired on WPLN.

Guests:

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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Aaron Gray found peace after enduring the unthinkable. His 5-month-old son Joel died in August 2012 after Gray’s then wife accidentally left the baby in the back seat of the family car. But Gray didn’t allow Joel’s death to shatter his life forever — he found peace in nature as he learned to untangle and release his trauma.

Gray used the worst moment in his life as a catalyst to help him help others. Through his podcast, Guys Dealings With Feelings, he seeks to connect with men and help them find their own paths to healing. These paths include holistic wellness and realizing the connections between the mind and body. Along with his therapist co-host, Gray tries to normalize men identifying and discussing their emotions: "I’m living life today to make sure there’s no more regrets."

Guest: Aaron Gray, host, Guys Dealings With Feelings

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Shauna Reynolds

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From the time she job-shadowed at the Jackson Sun in 8th grade, Becca Andrews knew she wanted to be a journalist. This aspiration took her from Tennessee to California and back again as she began an award-winning career as an investigative reporter. Andrews’ extensive coverage of reproductive healthcare and right-wing extremism prepared her for her latest project, American Shrapnel.

As co-writer and cohost, Andrews retraces the violent crimes of serial bomber Eric Robert Rudolph, explores the past that filled him with hate and aggression and describes the manhunt that put the elusive perpetrator in prison. It’s a story that took Andrews, her cohost and their producer three years to research and report, now unfolding one disturbing podcast episode at a time.

Guest: Becca Andrews, journalist, co-host, American Shrapnel

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Shauna Reynolds

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On Tuesday, the state of Tennessee executed Byron Black, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 for the murders of his then-girlfriend Angela Clay and her two daughters, nine-year-old Latoya and six-year-old Lakeisha. Black, who was intellectually disabled, had an implanted defibrillator that his attorney argued could cause undue suffering if it attempted to shock his heart as execution drugs took effect. Ultimately, after a series of legal challenges, the execution was allowed to proceed without intervention from either the Tennessee State Supreme Court or Gov. Bill Lee. As he was injected with a lethal dose of the barbiturate pentobarbital on Tuesday morning, Black was observed by media witnesses, including Banner editor Steve Cavendish, to groan, "Oh, it's hurting so bad."

Black was pronounced dead at 10:43 a.m. Afterward, attorney Kelley Henry said her client had been "tortured." A statement from the victims' family read, in part, "I thank God for this day, a day that was a long time coming." While initial data indicated that the defibrillator did not activate during the execution, an autopsy will take 8-12 weeks; in the meantime, Henry said in an emailed statement, "Make no mistake, we all saw with our own eyes that the pentobarbital did not work like the State's expert testified that it would. Mr. Black suffered."

Guests: Steve Cavendish, editor-in-chief, official media witness; Steven Hale, criminal justice reporter and author of Death Row Welcomes You

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Lilly Sabella and Steve Haruch

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What started as an ordinary ride home from a track meet changed Cathy Carillo's life. When Metro Police stopped her father for a broken taillight in 2009, they arrested him, and he was later deported. Cathy, who was 14 years old at the time, was left stranded on the side of the road and wondering: “Is this really home?”

That night set Cathy on a 15-year path that recently led to helping found The ReMIX Tennessee, a grassroots Latino community organization. As more families are torn apart by separation due to ICE arrests like those that took place during May's joint-federal state immigration sweep through Nashville’s Latino neighborhoods, Cathy spoke to Banner & Company about starting the anonymous hotline Music City Migra Watch for people to report ICE sightings and The ReMIX Tennessee’s urgent and evolving work.

Guest: Cathy Carillo, co-founder, The ReMIX TN

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Lilly Sabella

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When he first arrived in Nashville sight unseen, Ron Brice was just here for a job — running a video arcade. So how did a Michigander with no background in music aside from being a fan end up owning one of the city's most important independent venues? That story involves a gym, a professional wrestler, a Mexican restaurant and a whole lot of sweat equity.

The club Ron eventually opened up, Third & Lindsley, has hosted some of the city's best musicians for three decades, with some updates to the sound system and floor plan along the way. In a changing Music City, it's one of the last indie venues standing. And with a brand new lease, they will keep that tradition going for at least a few more years.

Guest: Ron Brice

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Shauna Reynolds

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Not many people have held Hank Williams demo recordings with his handwriting on them. But Alan Stoker has. He recently retired from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, where he worked for 50 years, much of it spent preserving and archiving rare — and sometimes fragile — recordings. He was there long enough that some of the recordings he archived he returned to a second time in order to digitize.

Alan was born into a musical family; his father was Gordon Stoker, a member of the Jordanaires, one of music history's most storied vocal groups — working with Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and countless others over a decades-long career. Alan's father gave him his first tape recorder, which set him on the path to audio engineering. He's pretty good behind a drum kit, too.

Guest: Alan Stoker, musician and audio archivist

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Lilly Sabella

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"I guess I'm a completist," artist Wendy Murray says of herself. And right now she has an appropriately ambitious project under way: drawing every building on Gallatin Pike. Or, as she likes to say, "the Gallatin Pike" (an homage to Ed Ruscha's Every Building on the Sunset Strip). Maybe you've seen her out with pens and museum board, sketching that day's subject.

Originally from New Zealand, Wendy has taught art at Sydney University in Australia and completed an internship here at Hatch Show Print — where the commute back and forth sparked her interest in the busy East Nashville thoroughfare — making posters, zines and all manner of artwork along the way.

Guest: Wendy Murray

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Lilly Sabella

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This month marks 100 years since the Scopes "monkey" trial in Dayton, Tenn. The simple version is that a 24-year-old teacher had been charged with breaking a state law forbidding the teaching of evolution. But as national press descended on this small Tennessee town — at least 150 reporters and photographers in all — it soon became clear that this was bigger than a simple criminal trial. It was as if science itself stood accused.

Writer, former Banner reporter and MTSU professor Leon Alligood has long been obsessed with the Scopes trial. This week, he has written a deep dive on its lasting importance for the Banner. Among the questions the trial raised: What is the role of government in education? What should children taught or not taught? Can science be trusted? The parallels a century later are striking.

Guest: Leon Alligood

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Maryam Abolfazli was born and raised in Nashville, into what she describes as a "a big and loving Iranian family." Some members of that family still live in Iran, where, already contending with a repressive government, they have also lived in a time of war and now, lingering uncertainty.

All of this hits close to home for Maryam, who has worked in the Middle East and retains close ties with her extended family. As a fragile ceasefire appears to hold, we asked her what it's been like to follow the news from Nashville, knowing loved ones potentially remain in harm's way.

Guest: Maryam Abolfazli, activist and Iranian American

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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