We Are North Nashville

What happens when a neighborhood is torn in half? In the 1960s, the state of Tennessee sent an interstate straight through the heart of North Nashville, the city's predominantly Black neighborhood, a thriving, self-contained community with an incredible legacy. Homes were demolished, residential blocks ripped up, streets bulldozed, and hundreds of businesses choked off from their customers — all in the name of progress. June 29 marks 70 years since the passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act that made this possible. The original route had I-40 going through a majority white neighborhood. That's when the state intervened. North Nashville residents fought against it, but the state won. Those wounds are not fully healed, and in some corners, still not even acknowledged. But the elders of this community who managed to stay despite the devastation and all that followed, are still here and reclaiming their space. An embodiment of the resilience and connectedness that the interstate threatened to eliminate.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

This week for We Are North Nashville, we’re sharing a special feed drop from Truth Be Told: Virginia: a podcast shaped by Hannah Sobol and Jackie Glass with the support of Nichole Hill. A collection of bite-sized stories built to hold lived experiences — joy and pain — with open ears and an open heart. In this episode you'll meet two people — one who grapples with his mother's quest for acceptance, another who finds herself singing in rooms she once had never imagined possible.

Listen to Truth Be Told: Virginia on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts. 

Follow Truth Be Told: Virginia: https://www.heardofem.com/podcast

This week for We Are North Nashville, we're sharing a special feed drop. Essential Salt is a Maine Public podcast made up of six, half hour episodes. The series is produced by Maine Public’s Brenna Farrell and Jess Miller with support from Isaac Kestenbaum at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies. In each episode, host Jess Miller introduces listeners to two archival Salt stories.

Maine is known for its scenic beauty and its perch on the far northeastern edge of America. But much of what goes on here speaks to the most central issues facing families, schools, towns, and cities across the US. Essential Salt is a collection of richly reported stories about living and working in Maine – where making a life brings the joy of vibrant landscapes and dynamic communities. But it also means grappling with tensions between rural and urban values, concerns about how to protect the water and land, and how to make sense of the past in a way that builds toward a strong future. This is a show about connection, and the power of local stories. And it’s a look at how getting to know your neighbors might change the way you see yourself.

Follow:

Instagram: @mainepublic
Facebook: Maine Public
LinkedIn: Maine Public
TikTok: @mainepublic
Threads: @mainepublic
Bluesky: @mainepublic.org

This week for We Are North Nashville, we’re sharing a special feed drop from Movement With Meklit Hadero — a podcast that explores the intersection of music, migration and identity. In this episode, you’ll hear the story of Peter One, an Ivorian musician whose journey from West Africa to the Grand Ole Opry reveals how extraordinary creativity often lives behind everyday jobs.

Listen to Movement With Meklit Hadero on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get your podcasts. 

Follow Movement With Meklit Hadero on Instagram or https://www.movementstories.com/ 

When Carlos Partee was growing up in North Nashville, this neighborhood was his whole world. Everyone was here: parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins. And even neighbors who weren't blood relations were like kin. People knew each other. Jerome Moore started a business with his father on Buchanan, a historic street that has seen revitalization in recent years. As entrepreneurs themselves, Carlos and Jerome see a lot of positive change in the form of new businesses in the area. But not all of the change has been good. And as the Council of Elders have shared, they're not opposed to change — just do it the right way. At a gathering on Buchanan, a group of new neighbors talked about what that might look like, and took home a few words of wisdom from the elders.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

Before he was an acclaimed poet and professor, Major Jackson was a kid from Philly who spent his summers in North Nashville — where his interest in language and storytelling first sparked. It’s a place that has cultivated wisdom, legacy and love for generations. A place that eventually drew Major back — to teach, but also to reconnect. In this episode, descendants of North Nashville OGs reflect on the kind of community care that’s sustained across generations, despite the lingering effects of time and systemic destruction. Through it all, North Nashville has produced movers and shakers. Its institutions, from Fisk University to the Eighteenth Avenue Family Enrichment Center, have served as beacons to the world. But most importantly, it is still a place that takes care of its own.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

John Streator Jr. was one of two African American photographers in Nashville back in the 1950s and ’60s. He was well known in the community, because he was everywhere — social clubs, sit-ins, food banks. Today, his daughter, Dr. Patricia Streator Jackson, still lives in the home she grew up in. The interstate changed North Nashville forever, and after decades of distress and underinvestment, it's changing again. This time, more affluent newcomers are moving in, often with little or no knowledge of the history this place holds. The elders who have stayed here aren't against change. They just want it to happen the right way. And they want to be part of it.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

Keeping North Nashville clean is important to Larry Turnley Jr., who owns a trash hauling business. It's about making a living, but it's also about pride in community. His father, Larry Sr. — known in the neighborhood as Fever — now works alongside him. For a long time, this didn’t seem like it’d ever be possible. After the tumult of the '60s and '70s, the destruction that made way for the interstate, and the hard times that followed, Fever found himself among those in the community struggling to make ends meet. He ended up incarcerated, and then, his son was sentenced to life in prison. 

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

Barbara Jean Watson made history when she enrolled at the previously all-white Jones School in North Nashville. She and her family faced constant threats of violence as a result, and one night their back yard was firebombed. Her older sister Leitha Carter remembers how the family home became a hub of activity for the NAACP and SNCC. White opposition to desegregation was just one of the many destabilizing forces that shaped and shook the community throughout the Civil Rights era. Attorney Z. Alexander Looby's home was bombed. And the wider conflicts of the time also reverberated through the neighborhood, harbingers of more change yet to come.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch

Thomas Wilson remembers seeing a white man pound a stake into the ground between a local school and the home where he lived with his parents. A fence went up, dividing the houses that would be demolished to make way for the construction of I-40 and those that would be spared. His family was forced out of their own house. Cheryl McReynolds' childhood home missed the same fate by just three houses. She still lives there today, keeping hope for renewal and remembrance in a rapidly gentrifying part of the city.

Hosted by M. Simone Boyd and Andrea Tudhope
Produced, mixed and edited by Andrea Tudhope
Original music by S-Wrap
Additional production by Steve Haruch