Nashville Is Starting to Face Its History of Slavery

For many years, Nashville has proudly celebrated its place in the civil rights movement, but it has done far less to openly reckon with its history of slavery and segregation. 

There are signs that could be changing.

Last month, when he announced the proposal for a new park adjacent to Fort Negley on the land where Greer Stadium sits now, Mayor David Briley framed it as an opportunity to begin atoning for sins of the past. Fort Negley was a Civil War stronghold built by thousands of former slaves who’d been forced into labor by Union soldiers. It’s likely that their remains are among those buried at the site, which would be preserved under the plan. 

“Our country, our city has never really done what is necessary to acknowledge the sacrifice of the slaves in our country, to atone for what is and will be a great scar on our nation’s history, or to take steps toward reconciliation,” Briley said at a press conference unveiling the plans. 

At the same time, a Nashville historian is working to see a historical marker erected downtown that would acknowledge the history of slave auctions that once took place there. 

Learotha Williams, an associate professor of African-American and public history at TSU, runs the North Nashville Heritage Project, and uses Twitter as a digital bulletin board on which to post the documentation of this history. Last week, he tweeted an image of an antebellum-era newspaper clipping that featured an announcement for a Saturday afternoon auction: “Negroes for Sale. I will sell, at auction, to the highest bidder for cash, at the Court-yard in Nashville.” The slaves to be sold? A woman, about 26 years old, and her three children: a boy around 8 or 9 years old and two girls, ages 5 and 3.    

“Instead of looking at a specific slave broker — because I’m finding that they came and went like many of the other businesses downtown — I’m trying to look at it as a sort of district,” Williams says. “A district that stretched from Fourth Avenue North and Charlotte to the Public Square. The evidence for these places has been there in plain sight, because they’re listed in the directories.”

The text of the proposed marker, which Williams was finalizing as of this writing, notes the way that black men, women and children were evaluated and commodified, but also the way these slave auctions were part of an expansive economy. 

“These institutions, these businesses, were an integral part of enslavement in Tennessee,” Williams says. “Including the guys that are selling them, including the banks that loaned money for property and for slaves — because slaves were bought on credit, you could get some pretty good terms for them — and then the hardware stores that sold tools, clothes. Even Aetna had an office at the public square that provided insurance on slaves.”

Metro Historical Commission executive director Tim Walker tells the Scene that the marker Williams envisions isn’t already on the the commission’s priority list for proposed historical markers, as the list was created several years ago. But he says the commission has found some ways to stretch its funds that he believes will allow it to cover the cost of the marker. 

Speaking to the Scene last month for our annual People Issue, Williams said about his desire to see the more painful parts of Nashville’s history recognized: “I don’t even know if it’s proper to say that putting something there that acknowledges their presence, that acknowledges that there were people there, would even be a start of healing. ... But ignoring it isn’t.”

Ideally, Williams says, he’d like to see the marker placed at the corner of Fourth Avenue and Charlotte Avenue, outside the Music City Central transit station. It would be nearly impossible to miss.