Introducing We Are North Nashville, a podcast about the lives of elders who call North Nashville home, in their own words. It's about the ways the elders have kept joy alive in their neighborhood in spite of all the challenges it has faced. It's about the history that newcomers to the city don't always know, or even think to ask about. It's about walking the streets and still seeing the way people held this place together, even when city planners set about ripping it apart.

This is a show about North Nashville. It's also a story about the United States, where Black communities have been cut apart, razed and deprived for generations in the name of progress that does not include them. More importantly, We Are North Nashville is what happens when the people who live history get to tell it.

The Rev. Dr. Margreat Smithson has dedicated her life to helping others. That instinct comes from the way she was raised by her village. In the North Nashville of her childhood, there were "neighborhood moms" like hers, who looked out for others. Rev. Smithson is one of the nine elders you'll meet in this podcast who remember this North Nashville — the one that existed before change came, in many forms, and disrupted the community.

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