Mural in Frankie Pierce Park by Olasubomi Aka-Bashorun
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There isn’t a mural from Charlotte Pike to Jefferson Street that my 8-year-old doesn’t love. Whether we’re walking, biking or driving by, she marvels at vivid colors, geometric designs and the people who stop in front of them for selfies.
I moved here by way of Baltimore 12 years ago. And although Nashville doesn’t have scrapple sandwiches, extra-lump crab cakes and club music blasting from marble stoops, or aye yo’s, huns or long, drawn-out double oo’s, I appreciate reconnecting with the Southern soil that my family left behind many decades ago. Through art, I always find pieces of home sprinkled across Music City — grocery stores, historic buildings, greenways and street corners once bustling with the lives of the ancestors I never knew.
In 2021, our homeschool enrichment program hosted a session centered on the mural in Frankie Pierce Park downtown. Olasubomi Aka-Bashorun, one of the artists who painted the mural, described his process while explaining Juno Frankie Pierce’s pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. Pierce significantly impacted African American women in this city. I could see what learning about Pierce did for my daughter and the other children in attendance. “Juno Frankie Pierce is a freedom fighter that everyone should know about,” proclaimed one of the 10-year-old participants. I thought, “This is why representation and education matter.”
After the lecture, the children created mini murals, throwing paint balloons against whiteboards showcasing vibrant explosions of color. That day, my daughter fell in love with the mural as an art form — and as a writer, I fell in love with another medium that harnessed the cultural memories of my people.
An online search led me to Creative Girls Rock — a Nashville-based nonprofit whose mission is to educate and empower young girls to cultivate creativity through art. Creative Girls Rock planned to paint a community mural on Slim & Husky’s late-night cinnamon-roll spot The Rollout on Buchanan Street. Located in historically Black North Nashville, Buchanan has surely seen the likes of civil rights heroes Z. Alexander Looby, Diane Nash and John Lewis, as well as artists like Zora Neal Hurston and Aaron Douglas. Housing discrimination and the building of the interstate that bisects the area contributed to inequalities that persist today, with gentrification now displacing Black residents. But Black Nashvillians persist. One Drop Ink Tattoo Parlour, Slim & Husky’s, The Southern V and more businesses have joined the decades-old Woodcuts Gallery and Framing and Alkebu-Lan Images. These are thriving, bustling, Black-owned destinations in our community.
So when I saw that Creative Girls Rock was inviting 5- to 16-year-olds to claim a wall, I jumped at the chance. The children were asked to select flowers that would be painted along with their names on the building. My daughter was ecstatic. She picked a rose because red is her favorite color, and she insisted that “the world just needs a little more love.” The project came at a time when we needed it the most, amid a pandemic and in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Daunte Wright and Breonna Taylor, as well as local men Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick, who were killed by police in 2017 and 2018. The community came together and rallied around Creative Girls Rock’s project unapologetically celebrating Blackness and women’s creativity through art. The affirmations painted on the mural — beautiful, intelligent, bold, worthy, valuable — also represented the promise of what the Buchanan district can do for our community.
However, just three years later, the mural on Buchanan Street was undone. One summer day, I drove by and noticed that the mural was being painted over with wide, pink paint swatches. When I went to the Creative Girls Rock Instagram page, I saw this message: “Unfortunately, it appears it’s getting painted over as someone moves into the space. It will be a devastating loss of positive energy and affirmations for the people of this community as the erasure continues.”
Like at so many other places in Nashville, the building changed hands, and the new owners erased the past. This type of erasure is unnerving. It’s the silent kind. It was heartbreaking to tell my daughter that the mural she contributed to will no longer be there. But then I thought about one of our other favorite murals on Main Street. “They tried to bury us,” it says. “Little did they know we are seeds.”
Beautiful. Intelligent. Bold. Worthy. Valuable. Fierce. These words describe the strength and creative contributions of Black women — and of the resilience of the North Nashville community that persists even in the face of erasure. For my family, the Creative Girls Rock project on Buchanan Street is more than just a mural. It’s a legacy we are happy to have been a part of.
Wherever I go now in the city, alongside a skyline continuously crowded with cranes and new infrastructure, I take a few moments to admire the imprint of humanity through canvases of art. Nashville’s murals collectively serve as an intimate portrait of the city where I birthed my two daughters. The murals are proof that they are surrounded by greatness.
