Black Out
Even after drawing national scrutiny for its lily-white membership, the Belle Meade Country Club can't lend a brother a hand
by Matt Pulle
When David Ewing walks into the foyer of the Belle Meade Country Club, he sees a painting of Robert E. Lee hanging over the fireplace. But the amateur historian only chuckles when asked what he thinks about being greeted by the Confederate general's portrait.
For nearly five years now, Ewing has been a candidate for membership in the tony club. If accepted into its hallowed ranks, he would become the first local African American to join in its 107-year history. The place does have a black member, attorney Richard Sinkfield. But he lives in Atlanta and only makes the four-hour trek once or twice a year.
Judging by pure aesthetics, you wouldn't think the club is worth a $40,000 fee and a five-year wait to join. The main building doesn't particularly convey an impression of power and prestige. It's a white colonial mansion with four skinny columns, fronted by a paneled exterior that looks more dated than historic. The pool is a mob of kids that backs up to the well-traveled Belle Meade Boulevard. And the centerpiece, the golf course, looks only marginally more inviting than the one at McCabe.
But Belle Meade's cachet lies with its members. In the plush dining room you'll find executives who can write a $1 million check without letting their wives know. You'll find federal judges, rain-making lawyers and a handful of unremarkable men who married remarkably well. If you snag an invitation to the Iroquois Hunt Ball, a fundraiser for Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, you'll encounter surnames like Frist and Ingram, first names like Overton and Guilford. They are descendants of the elite found in the club's dusty photographs, whose faces appear austere and presidential. It's a look that's been perfected since 1901.
Pigmentation aside, David Ewing seems an ideal candidate for these select environs. His father was a surgeon, his grandfather a teacher and preacher. Ewing's great-great-grandfather—Prince Albert Ewing—may have been the first black attorney in Nashville, launching his practice in 1871. This is the kind of breeding that puts the exclusivity in any Southern club.
David Ewing is certainly carrying on that legacy. In 2004, The Tennessean saluted him in its Top 40 Under 40 list. He's worked as a lobbyist for both Gaylord Entertainment and the Chamber of Commerce, and has served as the finance director for Congressman Jim Cooper. He now works as a lawyer for Rudy, Wood and Winstead in a stately mansion near Vanderbilt.
Ewing's civic calendar is even more robust. He heads up the Metro Board of Zoning Appeals and sits on the boards of the Nashville Symphony and Friends of Warner Parks. He also serves on an advisory board to Montgomery Bell Academy, the prestigious private school.
His is the kind of establishment cred that would make him a lock for membership. Especially since he was nominated by Ridley Wills II, who literally wrote the book on the club's history, and Lee Barfield, brother-in-law to former U.S. Senator Bill Frist and partner in Bass Berry & Sims, arguably the city's most elite law firm.
But people who track Belle Meade's highly secretive admissions process say it's unlikely Ewing will ever get in. It would mark a surprising defeat for the lawyer. After all, the club needs him far more than he needs the club.
Last year, President George W. Bush appointed Belle Meade member Gus Puryear to a federal judgeship in Tennessee's Middle District. Puryear seemed a safe pick, a devout Republican and chief counsel for Corrections Corporation of America. But his membership in Belle Meade did him in.
Though senators peppered Puryear with questions about his lack of courtroom experience, the Northern ones seemed more mesmerized by the dusty rituals of Nashville's preeminent country club. It was as if a team of archaeologists had discovered a primitive tribe freely roaming Tennessee. Sens. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin pressed Puryear to spell out the club's racial makeup. But when you've only admitted one black guy over 107 years, it's hard to come up with answers.
Now, with his patron Bush only months away from escaping back to Texas, Puryear's candidacy seems all but finished.
Accepting Ewing five years ago could have helped Puryear. Instead, his membership prospects have oddly dimmed.
Certainly the club has a history of genteel hazing. Newly relocated corporate execs have been known to cool their heels for a few years before acceptance. It's Belle Meade's version of a power play. But Ewing's wait has been agonizingly long, igniting speculation at cocktail parties and in boardrooms that there are other factors—besides old-fashioned prejudice—keeping him at bay.
Some will say that the lawyer is too much the social climber. He and his wife, Alice Randall, have a knack for landing on the society pages whenever they leave their Hillsboro Village home. Still, it's hard to blame the couple for their ubiquity. Photographers are often forced to snap photos of Dave and Alice because, outside of the help, they're the only black faces in the room. Moreover, Ewing wouldn't be the only member loathe to miss a charity ball.
Other gossips say Ewing's bona fides aren't undercut by his race, but by his wife, a best-selling author. It would be one thing if Randall wrote page-turners or intellectual treatises. But her most famous effort is The Wind Done Gone, a biting parody of the racism threaded through Gone With the Wind.
Short of mocking the New Testament or Milton Friedman, Randall could not have impeded her husband's social future more than by poking fun at this staple of Southern literature.
But others note that if the club held a prospect's wife against him, the golf course would be a lot less crowded on Sundays. Here's where a far simpler explanation rises for why Ewing's candidacy has stalled: The secret inner sanctum of the club doesn't want to see black faces at the golf course, on the tennis courts, or in swimming pool.
"They understand they can't use the N-word anymore and can't make any more outrageous statements," says one downtown attorney, who prefers not to be named when castigating his client base. "But I think some of my Republican friends who are members of the club—they're well-educated and broad-minded in many respects—but they're still racist."
Ewing declined to comment for this story. In fact, he gently tried to dissuade Scene from writing about his predicament, noting that Nashville confronts far greater issues.
But when pressed, he issued a short statement endearing for its appreciation of Southern hospitality:
"I was encouraged to apply to Belle Meade by my friends and sponsors. What happens to my application is up to the membership of the club and its leadership. Alice and I have been to many functions at the club, from the Hunt Ball to just social dinners and luncheons with friends, and we were always warmly greeted and treated with respect. And we always see a lot of friends while we're there."
Ewing is not the only black candidate up for membership—even if he's the one most people to talk about. Darrell Freeman, the former chair of the Chamber of Commerce and a successful tech entrepreneur, is also a prospect. But though he too has a notable supporter—HCA Chairman Jack Bovender—Freeman may face even longer odds than Ewing.
A 2006 Nashville Post story named Freeman as being involved in a "shakedown probe." The story was bereft of detail and almost impossible to follow. More important, nothing ever came of the supposed probe. Yet such whispering isn't the kind of lubricant that slips you into Nashville's elite clubhouse.
And Freeman may have more elemental problems: A lot of people simply don't like the guy. Even progressive whites, who realize the implications of calling a black man "arrogant," nonetheless call him just that.
If Freeman and Ewing are passed up, we'll never really know why. The club's 52-page manual, which includes rules about what carts can be driven on the course, doesn't even hint at how members are selected. Few people seem to have a clue, making it one of Nashville's most cloaked traditions.
Gil Merritt, a senior judge on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals who inherited his father's Belle Meade membership in the 1950s, says that while many of the club's decisions are kept secret, he doesn't think anyone is hostile toward blacks. In fact, the Democratic jurist believes Belle Meade did recruit religious publisher T.B. Boyd and other African Americans to apply, but they politely declined.
"I don't think there is an exclusionary policy," says Merritt, "but they do have a secret membership committee who looks at the people up for membership and decides who gets in and who doesn't. My understanding is that they have more people who want to get in than they can accept."
Some say that the club's secret membership committee favors executives at major corporations and partners in the elite law firms. Others contend selection is tethered to family ties. In Belle Meade, few things matter more than legacy.
It all adds up to a rather mystical process, with the club's secret committee serving as a WASPy College of Cardinals. They don't have to explain who gets into the club and why, even to fellow members, though their reasoning is the stuff of legend. Talk to enough people, and you'll hear stories of men being rejected because they stole a member's girlfriend at Harpeth Hall 25 years ago.
Secrecy and pettiness make a volatile combination. So it's hardly a surprise that Ewing's candidacy is stalled. But he should take heart.
Liberal warhorse lawyer George Barrett dines at Belle Meade, though he's probably sued or antagonized half its members. He says that for all its trappings, the place has a rather ordinary appeal.
"It's like any other club. People of like interests flock together and don't want anyone to rock the boat," he says with a chuckle. "What's wrong with that?"
Comments (38)
Showing 1-25 of 38
While Gus Puryear is mentioned only briefly in this article, more information about the Belle Meade Country Club and Mr. Puryear's membership in the club are available here: www.againstpuryear.org Three national women's rights groups have condemned Mr. Puryear's club membership, as "lady members" at the Belle Meade Country Club are unable to vote or hold office.
like
dislike
It hardly seems as though, in this day and age, one's wife's novel would deny one membership in the most hallowed halls. For instance, we have excerpts from "Sisters," a novel by Lynn Cheney, wife of Gus Puryear's most ardent champion: "The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve on a dark cathedral stage--no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were. She felt curiously moved, curiously envious of them. . . . she saw that the women in the cart had a passionate, loving intimacy forever closed to her. How strong it made them. What comfort it gave." And... (Sophie finds a letter Amy Travers, a schoolteacher and close friend of her late sister, had written to her:) "Helen, my joy and my beloved, Why do we stay? I have no reason beyond a few pupils who would miss me briefly, and your life would be infinitely better away from him. Let us go away together, away from the anger and imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement. In the evenings I shall read to you while you work your cross-stitch in the firelight. And then we shall go to bed, our bed, my dearest girl..." Lynn denies, of course, that there was any lesbianism alluded to in the book. It all "depends on what 'is' is," I suppose. And Mary Cheney was only about 12 at the time, so a long way from being "out."
Kropotkin = Frank Smith of the Private Corrections Institute http://www.kansan.com/users/Kropotkin/comments/ http://www2.ljworld.com/users/Kropotkin/comments/?page=1 http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/news.php?viewStory=59704 He is based in Kansas, but takes great interest in the coverage of Nashville matters by the Nashville Scene and the Nashville City Paper.
All politics may be local, Frank Smith's nonsense is global. The Cheney's? Lynn Cheney's books? Irrelevant, anti Puryear activism from a Kansas carpetbagger.
All politics are local. Stupidity is global. Including yours. Who cares, besides you?
Of course carpetbaggers like you and Frank Smith think we Southerners are stupid. That's why you've come all the way from Kansas down to Nashville to help us understand things. Are you for free speech or against it? Is it a free country or isn't it? I guess to you carpetbaggers it depends on who's talking at the time! C A R P E T B A G G E R ! When Frank Smith says he's from Bluff City, that's Bluff City, Kansas! We've got our own Bluff City called "Memphis." Maybe you've heard of it! It's in the SOUTH, CARPETBAGGERS! You wouldn't be trying to trick us would you? More info: http://letters.salon.com/0ccc4b7f67e077aff9a8e8c194dd9cae/author/ You know if he's a SALON PREMIUM MEMBER he's got to be from someplace else! I don't know any if any of us Southerners got the book smarts to read that Salon Magazine. Please come help us read. Please. And this... http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archives/2006/03/ks_keep_private.html It was hard for me, a Southerner, to read that fancy Kansas writing, but I done my best. CAR PET BAG GER Here's a picture: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/Carpetbagger.jpg It's a carpetbagger!
Yeah that's right. Come on down and gawk at us hicks and our cowntry ways. Glad we can be so entertaining for yall.
Yeah that's right. Come on down and gawk at us hicks and our cowntry ways. Glad we can be so entertaining for yall.
Umm ... BellsBend, I think you just negated your own point, or proved mine, or both. I'm all for free speech -- both yours and Franks. Apparently you're only interested in yours, since, you know, no one from above the Mason Dixon line has any business paying attention to what us Southern'rs are doin'. In fact, they should have minded their own damn business in the 1860's so we-alls could still run slave plantations down here. Right? You're sillier than a rabid coon.
SoWhat: I've read a lot of Frank's writings and I don't think he would want you to use a racial slur in the process of defending him.
So now you're using the "Frank wouldn't like it defense" -- though you apparently don't like Frank much (he's a CARPETBAGGER!!!!) -- so long as it suits your purposes, whatever those are?? You're apparently not from the South yourself, suh, or you'd know what a coon was. That you think it's a slur just shows your own ig-nor-ance. Good ole' boys go coon hunting, using coon dogs. Coons are raccoons, you idjit. You must be a yankee, too. http://www.coondawgs.com/
And I am amazed and astounded, suh, that you can even spell "caricature." Who is more of a racist -- one who uses a term that only in the minds of some could be considered a racial epithet, or those who immediately and solely think of the potential racial connotation of that word? A racist is as a racist thinks. You are no Southerner, suh -- and that is meant as an insult. You can have your seconds (e.g., Deepspacenine) call on my seconds. ;) Land sakes, but you're easy to mess with, my friend!
When is some digging going to be done regarding Darrell Freeman….) (and just thinking of that name makes me wonder if he and his buddies have joined the “Kids of America: Slime Across America” game or are they underneath the suits ‘ just green and slimey’). Freeman has been handed status, and not learned how to handle it with class. It should be an embarrassment to the business community that they are letting someone skim the surface of business for a free ride. Do some research…just for starters……. Zycron….. http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/211/RipOff0211316.htm http://www.ripoffreport.com Does the business community not truly know what Darrell? Apparently not. It is sad to think that in such a terrific town like Nashville that it 'hangs' with such class-LESS people, yet thrilled to be seen in pictures with him. Does intelligence not count anymore? Does character not matter in Nashville? Geez… I’d just take speaking ability where Freeman is concerned but oh well…...
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/211/RipOff0211316.htm http://www.ripoffreport.com
More info on the crook. And again.. this is okay with the businesses? and he is a head figure witht the Chamber??!!!!!? Shakedown probe looks at minority-business dealings UPDATED 2:45 pm -- Darrell Freeman issues statement, denies knowledge of any investigation http://www.nashvillepost.com/news/2006/6/15/feds_focus_in_on_council_chamber_and_minority_business_leaders
Darrell will never get into Belle Meade Country Club but it is not because of his race. The Scene should have done the whole article about why Darrell is not suitable for BMCC. Here are the top 10 reasons (and there are many more!) he will never be accepted into the club: 1. His friends call BMCC members "racist" and "pretentious." 2. He was investigated by the FBI and TBI when he tried to shakedown local developers for his own profit. 3. He hangs out with Ludye Wallace. 4. His name is "Darrell" but it could be worse, he could spell it "Darryl." 5. He grew up in "humble origins" not on Jackson Blvd. 6. He went to MTSU not Sewanee, UVA, Vanderbilt or Washington & Lee. 7. He drives a Corvette with a vanity plate. 8. He can barely put a sentence together. 9. Hardly any members at BMCC know him. 10. He is ARROGANT!
Obvious you guys don't know Darrell Freeman 1. Vanity Plate Says "4KIDDAD" Sounds like he is a proud father. 2. Can't put a sentence together. Watch him introduce the President of the United States. http://www.zycron.com/news/bush.htm 3. He is confident not arrogant. 4. First ever two term time Chamber Chairman. 5. Provides scholarships to disadvantaged students via his Family Foundation 6. Investigated...I think not. The guy hangs with the President. He must have passed all the CIA and Secret Service Checks. 7. Angel Flight Pilot..Flies cancer patients to treatments in his airplane free of charge. 8. He coached my kids in little league baseball.
I guess President Bush like brothas from tha hood like his pop. Hangin with the Prez? Big deal! Even Eazy E hung out with President Bush's father! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMWhSQLYQ30 You must be arrongant to think this is some big deal D! I guess the same Secret Service and CIA that cleared Darrell let Eazy E, a known cocaine dealer and gansta rapper with cop killing lyrics into seeing the President. Forget this silly tag, what kind of rims do you have on your ride D? Belle Meade needs some heavy pimpin'! Darrell is just from the hood and shaking down white people is how we roll! Stick up for your old school roots Darrell.
