Hey Thanks, Community Oversight Now

Hey Thanks, Community Oversight Now

Community Oversight Now fought to have an amendment creating a police oversight board on the Nov. 6 ballot — an amendment that ultimately passed. To those behind Community Oversight Now, I say thank you. 

I am writing this in the comfort of my house, as a Nashvillian who has never feared for my life when interacting with police. I am writing to you in a city we all call home. It is a city where there is still no public monument honoring Diane Nash, who stood on the steps of city hall in 1960 and asked Mayor Ben West directly whether he thought racial discrimination was wrong. I am writing to you in a city in a state in a country that has failed again and again to acknowledge and lift up the work of black women in particular. 

So, Gicola Lane, I say your name. 

Sheila Clemmons Lee, I say your name. 

Theeda Murphy, I say your name. 

It is a small gesture, and insufficient. And I know there are more names, many more names I don’t know, too many names to list here — 8,000-plus on the petition to put Amendment 1 on the ballot, 130,000-plus who voted for it. There is more to do, but you did the work that mattered. In the words of Bernice Johnson Reagon, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” Even so, I hope you’ve taken a moment, at least — of rest, of self-care, of calm. You’ve earned it. You did this.

—Steve Haruch

Contributor, Nashville Scene