Recognizing Davidson County’s history of racial terror and its legacy today
The Metropolitan Nashville Davidson County Community Remembrance Project Coalition ("We Remember Nashville") exists to promote community awareness, education, and public reckoning around racial terror in Nashville, TN (Davidson County) through partnerships with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and local stakeholders. Led by an inter-generational, multi-gendered, interfaith core, We Remember Nashville will tell the story with dignity, truth, and resilience in order to move toward reconciliation.
Objectives
Truth
To tell stories that have been forgotten, intentionally erased, or were never told.
Many Nashvillians do not know the history of terrorism and oppression in Davidson County, and do not understand its effects today.
RESILIENCE
To reckon with the past and use its lessons to feel empowered about the future.
We hope that those affected by this history will view our efforts as a chance to heal and overcome the past.
Reconciliation
To foster community conversations, create ceremonies to tell the story of racial terror and its victims, and provide educational materials so our children can understand our past.
The most important tool of atonement is truth. Reconciliation cannot happen without truth.
Dignity
To provide dignity to those whom a racist system sought to demean.
The families affected by racially motivated violence and exploitation have never had their stories told, though they are part of the fabric of the African American experience in Davidson County.
Our work is 100% community-led. Every dollar goes toward helping our volunteers tell the full story of Nashville's history.
Our History
In Nashville and throughout the South, terror was used to oppress and exploit African Americans in the same way that violence is used by modern-day terrorists. The constant threat of arbitrary violence created lasting trauma that shapes our world today and often goes unacknowledged. We Remember Nashville is working to make sure that this history no longer goes unrecognized.
Six recorded racial terror lynchings took place in Davidson County between the end of Reconstruction and 1950. We are collecting their stories here.