Despite having never been home to a Major League Baseball team, Nashville has a rich history on the diamond dating back to at least the early 20th century. A key figure in Music City's baseball lineage was honored Thursday morning with the unveiling of a new mural in E.S. Rose Park.
Belmont illustration student Joanna Wu designed a mural inspired by Nashville's deep connections with the Negro leagues — a collection of professional baseball leagues scattered throughout the United States during the 1900s prior to the integration of the MLB. The piece depicts local baseball legend Norman "Turkey" Stearnes alongside a young Black boy and his stickball bat in the neighborhood of Edgehill.
Wu was selected from a pool of Belmont art students to design the mural, which was funded by a $20,000 Metro Arts grant. Belmont's Watkins College of Art, Metro Arts and Metro Parks collaborated on the project, and officials from each group — along with family members of former Nashville Negro leagues players and Metro Councilmember Terry Vo — were among those on hand for the ribbon-cutting Thursday.
"Different aspects of the community all came together to make this happen," says Dr. Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton, daughter of former Negro leaguer and Nashville native Henry Kimbro. "And what this will do is it will spark discussion. It will spark research. It will spark questions for people to ask or answer, and especially, it will spark curiosity."
From left: AC Pullig-Gomez, Dr. Harriet Kimbro-Hamilton, James Pierce, Brenda Morrow, artist Joanna Wu, John Spencer, Metro Councilmember Terry Vo, Joyce Searcy, Charles White and Alana Hibbler
Kimbro-Hamilton wrote a book chronicling her father and other local Negro leaguers — Home Plate: Henry Kimbro and Other Negro Leaguers of Nashville, Tennessee. She also directed a documentary on the subject — A Tour of One City: The History of the Negro Leagues in Nashville, Tn. and Beyond — which screened at this year's International Black Film Festival in October.
"[Kimbro-Hamilton] is an amazing storyteller — everyone was super inspired," Wu says. "All her stories were different; however, I noticed that there was a common theme in all of them, which is determination, perseverance, tough love and just hope. ... I really wanted to depict that, and how I felt, in the mural."
Kimbro, a seven-time Negro leagues all-star, was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Stearnes — a Pearl High School alum — is currently the only Tennessee-born player in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. He began his career with Tom Wilson's pioneering Nashville Giants before going on to become a five-time all-star and seven-time National Negro League home run leader.
Stearnes, Kimbro and other legendary figures like fellow Pearl High alum Jim "Junior" Gilliam paved the way for future Nashvillians like MLB superstar Mookie Betts, currently fresh off his fourth World Series win.
"[Betts] had to have opportunities that Turkey Stearnes and Henry Kimbro and Jim Zapp and Butch McCord helped pave the way for, and that's the reflection I get from this mural," Kimbro-Hamilton says. "Somebody had to pave the way, because the way was not paved when they played. The door was closed. But then the door was wide open, and a Mookie Betts had the opportunity to go through those doors."
