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

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

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

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

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

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