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[music playing] Nashville, Tennessee is many things.

It is also one of America's "it" cities in the Southeast.

You'll see various, often insane accounts of how many people are moving to Nashville per day, or hour, or second.

But the general consensus is it's a lot.

The term unicorn even refers to the dwindling number of people who actually hail from Nashville.

Development is a blessing and a curse for the communities that made Nashville a city people wanted to go to in the first place.

North Nashville, anchored by its central thoroughfare of Jefferson Street, brings this into high relief.

Suffering in the name of progress is not new to this committee, and one of the first victims was history itself.

Nashville is referred to by many as Music City.

But it's not for the reasons you might think.

[music playing] Jefferson Street.

It is the cultural, historical, and practical center of North Nashville.

It was also home to the Jefferson Street music scene, a blues and R&B scene that came out of more than 30 plus nightclubs, dinner clubs, and venues lining the street from the 1940s into the '60s.

These venues featured prominently in the rise of artists everyone knows-- Ray Charles, Etta James, Ike and Tina Turner, Marion James, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix.

The list goes on and on.

Today, only one of these clubs remains, and too few people know the musical legacy here.

But one man is bringing it back from the edge of obscurity.

Meet Lorenzo Washington and his Jefferson Street Sound Museum.

He has started a shrine to the amazing performers and musicians that called Jefferson Street home, many of which were his friends.

And he got our attention quick.

Wait, you actually saw Jimi Hendrix walk up and down Jefferson Street?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

It wasn't nothing.

And he'd always have his guitar on his shoulder.

You know, he didn't have a case.

You know, and he pawned it a lot, too.

That's one thing he did.

We would pay more attention to Johnny Jones because we knew him.

And Jimi in the clubs, man, he got kind of wild, you know?

And a lot of the artists the musicians that actually played the blues didn't like when Jimi Hendrix would come out and do his own thing.

It was like he was trying to take over the show.

You know?

[laughter] These guys-- Jimi took over the show a lot of times.

Yeah, a lot of times, played a-- What was Jefferson Street like back in the day?

This was our Wall Street.

We had three HBCU universities here on Jefferson Street.

So we had a crowd of people up and down Jefferson Street from all walks of life.

We had bakeries.

We had car dealerships, department stores, funeral homes, churches.

Just about any business that it would take for a neighborhood to survive, we had it on Jefferson Street.

Then what happened?

The interstate came through, right?

Interstate 40.

You can hear the cars.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, you can hear them all around us.

That separated the community.

And so the businesses moved out.

The residents moved out.

You know, you had a lot of prominent people.

Lorenzo, what do you love about this place?

Well, when I come in here, I mostly enjoy coming to this room because you see all of these smiling faces in here.

How many pictures do you have?

Too many to count.

I've got about 10,000.

And one of my favorite pictures, the 50th anniversary of the sit-ins downtown at Woodworth.

And Miss Diane Nash is leading the march during that 50th anniversary.

And then I got another picture down here with one of my best friends, Jesse Boyce.

We are at the Club Baron down the street.

The Club Baron is the last club left standing.

It's still around.

It's still there.

Jesse also played bass for Little Richard for 20 years.

Wow.

So you got some stories with Little Richard, as well?

Well, I don't have a lot of stories about Little Richard that I could tell.

There you go.

[laughter] Now, my favorite is that tree.

You're going to get a lot of history from that tree.

You've got the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Singers.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers were the reason that Fisk were able to survive there at one time in the 1870s.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers went on tour.

To raise funds?

To raise funds, yeah.

And they performed for Queen Victoria.

And Queen Victoria, at the end of their concert and all, couldn't get the name together, so she said these kids from the Music City.

And that's how Music City obtained that name.

That whole branding has really changed to something that it never really was in the beginning.

That's right.

That's crazy.

That's right.

And isn't that the story of so many things?

Right.

The museum, I think, is a really good explanation-- [interposing voices] --influences, and these are the people that made that stuff happen.

That made it happen.

And they weren't getting any credit.

And Marion James, these are Marion James' shoes here.

And Marion James is all over the place because we were really good friends.

She encouraged me to be a spokesman for all of these great artists and musicians that actually played over here on Jefferson Street.

I want you to feel like you just stepped back in time.

Is part of the mission here to get the younger generations to know their history and understand?

Yes.

They need to know from where they came.

Jesse Boyce and myself sort of renamed a portion of it.

And we call it the original Music Row.

And it is.

Jefferson Street had live music from Second Avenue and Good Jenny Jones's place all the way up to 35th, which is prices.

And there's prices up there on the wall.

[interposing voices] Did you guys know what was going on back when you were a kid?

We didn't think it would ever get past what it was then, that the clothing would change, that the cars would change, because we were right there in that little world.

And I'm one of the old guys, and I have to recognize and realize that, because my next birthday, I'll be 80.

Well, don't go anywhere, Lorenzo.

Keep telling those stories.

Yes, sir.

To reach a broader audience and help preserve this history, Lorenzo recently brought on Saaneah as executive director at the museum.

One of the aforementioned unicorns, she grew up in North Nashville, steeped in the history of Jefferson Street.

Saaneah is a model, musician, and performer who is bringing everything she knows to the task of enlightening people on the history of her community.

Any moment that I felt that I couldn't go forward as an artist, I would always come to Jefferson Street Sound.

Lorenzo really kind of created a home for us here in North Nashville to remember where we come from, and then also understand where we're going.

We're bridging the gap between the old and the new.

This street has cultivated my music, has cultivated who I am as an artist.

We're surrounded by legends.

There's-- I know, everywhere.

--pictures everywhere, right?

And you as a performer, who inspired you?

Wow, there are so many people.

But I will have to say Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, and Etta James.

Etta James recorded her first album, live album here at 25.

Every time I hear that, I'm just like, OK, I can do it.

Yeah, exactly.

You're not far from that.

Nina Simone was not only an artist, but she was also a community activist.

And she was really into bringing equity into communities.

When gentrification is happening, we can create a new wave, where we unify and find out what the roots of our where you're moving to need.

I want my community that built me up to thrive.

My mom has always instilled in me the importance of honoring our ancestors and honoring our elders in order to continue the legacies that they have built.

And I'm just like, well, I'm going to make sure I sing everywhere, and I'm going to make sure that my community is very loud and proud about who they are, because my ancestors, although they struggled, they still had so much joy.

And we're going to hear Saaneah sing loud and proud.

But Jefferson Street and North Nashville's rich history goes far beyond music.

We met up with Dr. Learotha Williams to learn more.

He's associate professor of African-American and Public History at TSU, one of the Jefferson Street HBCUs.

He calls his work an exploration of collective amnesia, and finds the arts are a more powerful form of remembrance than his lectures.

To that end, he offered to take us on a short mural tour of North Nashville.

And yeah, the snow melted.

That's spring in Nashville.

We started at a site dedicated to Jefferson Street and situated in the shadow of the interstate that undid it.

So Dr. Williams, where are we heading now?

This is the Gateway to Heritage.

It's supposed to celebrate the Jefferson Street community.

There are three themes that run throughout this place.

One is education.

So you're going to see some pillars that deal with Fisk University, with TSU and Meharry.

Then you have civil rights.

So you have some of our civil rights icons and our politicians.

It's a celebration, but it's also kind of problematic for me because you're celebrating stuff that the city actively destroyed.

Club Del Morocco sat right over there.

Oh, no kidding.

There's a famous photograph of Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella eating fried chicken over there.

Didn't Jimi Hendrix play at the Del Mor?

He played.

He actually lived at an apartment that was right next to the Del Morocco.

And now we got Tall and Skinnies there, right?

This strip is full of history, full of culture.

This wall, these murals were painted by James Threalkill and Michael McBride.

So all that portrays Black life, Black joy and memories.

Can it be this again?

Let me preface this by saying this.

I'm a historian, so most of my view of the future is going to be kind of jaded because I know what we are capable of.

Many of the people that lived in this spot, that animated this space, they've transitioned and their children have gone on.

And then you've got to think of how valuable this real estate is.

This across the street is the future.

But the question becomes, who are you building this for?

This new group that are coming in, or you're trying to do something that's going to welcome the residents that are here now?

And neighborhoods and community, they're just like people, right?

They're born, they reach adolescence, they mature.

Then they either die or they become something else.

But I think the important question, the one that needs to be answered, is what it's going to become and who's going to make the decision about what it will look like.

Did the interstate basically erase Jefferson Street's history?

I love this place because it's a celebration of the past, but by the same token, in my mind, it's a-- I'll say monument, in many ways, to what was destroyed, what was removed.

Not far from there is Club Baron, the last remaining Jefferson Street club, now an Elks Lodge.

It was also the site of one of the most famous and epic guitar battles in history, between Jimi Hendrix and Nashville's own Johnny Jones.

This mural is by Woke and Sensei I'll tell you all what I heard.

OK.

I'm sitting in the barbershop, and we're talking, and I said, well, OK, who really won that battle?

Johnny got him because Hendrix had a cheap amp that night.

[laughter] And one of the stories in Nashville is thousands of people came here with a guitar on their back and a dream in their hearts, and then they ended up working at some restaurant somewhere.

Hendrix was not that.

You know, Hendrix says that this is where he actually mastered his craft.

And you know, I didn't even realize that he was associated with Jefferson Street until I got here and started talking to people.

And there's still some good music coming out of this building.

There was a lady that was in there that was playing the electric guitar.

And she got in and started picking it with her teeth, and then she put it behind her back-- [interposing voices] [inaudible] Yeah.

And she was killing it.

And she was the only one out there on the stage that night.

So I left here thinking, I was like, wow, man, must be something spiritual about playing a guitar in this space.

I love you pointed out the detail of the purple haze.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Somebody may have lost, but somebody still won.

It's still purple.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[laughter] From there, we walk half a block to meet the artist Woke at his legacy mural.

You know, with Nashville growing as fast as it is, the problem is, who jumps in?

Developers jump in.

Yeah.

And then so how do you hold on the history of this?

Cherokee, Choctaw-- Yeah?

--they lived here-- Yeah.

Oh, well, that's true.

--in Nashville before Roberts and them settled here.

But I only know one Cherokee guy in this whole city.

It's frustrating.

We celebrate stuff after we destroy it.

[laughter] woke, first of all, walking up to this thing, man, wow.

Wow.

Exactly how big is that?

I think it's around or close to 4,000 square feet.

Yeah, it's the biggest wall I've done so far.

Did you have to go back and buy more paint?

Yes, he did.

What was your dream when you saw that wall before?

This wall is something that I would always look at and be like, man, it's just a big, blank wall.

And like, if somebody was to paint that, they could use it as an opportunity to speak to the whole neighborhood.

This is a history lesson in a way that I can't replicate in the classroom.

And I think about I get maybe 15 minutes a day with 25 students.

Now think about how many cars come pass here every day and see this legacy.

[music playing] I pick up something new every time I come here.

And I'm just grateful that this is something that's done out in the public, something that belongs to North Nashville.

Do you worry that this will not be here someday?

I've talked to the owners and things.

We've kind of come to agree for this to be up at least 10 years.

This is one of those pieces that the community, like, deserves to have.

And you know, it belongs to us.

There's a lot of reference to the elders and the people that came before.

This street and this area, it's got a really deep, rich history.

But it doesn't seem to be lost on people.

And I guess that goes to the teachers and the teaching and the arts.

So really, what you guys are creating here, I think, is fantastic.

Y'all have a good relationship, don't you?

Yeah.

I'm his biggest fan.

We took the short drive down to the end of Jefferson Street to TSU to talk about the critical role HBCUs have in the community, and also society at large.

First HBCU was actually up North, Chaney University.

And they oftentimes look at these institutions as being spaces initially where we could demonstrate that African-Americans were fully human and capable of doing anything that whites could do.

The ones that emerge during Reconstruction, in many ways, those institutions are monuments to our struggle for equality.

Here in the Music City, Fisk Jubilee Singers were the very first international touring group.

One of the most arresting pieces of architecture in this city is Jubilee Hall, paid for by the songs that our ancestors lifted up out of the cotton fields and the tobacco fields.

This was an articulation of our spirit, of our hope for the future.

So when we look at our schools, these become spaces that exemplify, in many instances, Black excellence.

Meharry is still cranking out the majority of Black doctors in this country.

HBCUs collectively are producing most of the Black professional class.

The students at these HBCUs radically transformed how we define democracy.

As I sit here and talk to you, I think about Bernard Lafayette coming here after Z Alexander Looby's house has been bombed.

He comes here trying to figure out what to do, trying to make sense of what went on.

And I can imagine somebody saying, well, we need to talk to the mayor.

So about 1,500 gather here, and they walk down Jefferson Street.

They pick up Fisk students at the corner of DB Todd and Jefferson, and they march a little bit further, and then you got high school students from Pearl High School.

Then by the time they reach the public square, there are well over 3,000 students there.

And we're here today and it's kind of noisy, but I can't even imagine what it must have been like watching these students march three by three down Jefferson Street, and the only thing you're hearing are the sounds of their feet.

So they finally make it to the public square, where Diane Nash confronts Ben West and asks him if he believes that it's OK to discriminate against a person just because they're Black.

He replies no.

This opens the door to the integration of the lunch counters here in Nashville.

Having said that, there was still a lot more to do, right?

Because the walls didn't just come tumbling down with a shout.

This site is a little bit more than a site with a gym where our basketball teams used to kick butt.

This is one of the sites that define freedom in its truest sense of the word here in Nashville.

None of this was very far in the past.

No.

As older folks, we lament the status of our young folks, and as young folks, we try to slay our parents.

But there are some similarities there that show that these folks are thinking along these same lines.

So what it revealed to me is that there's a connection between what occurred here in the '60s and then what we observe here today, because I'll be honest, I'm getting a little bit older now, and I don't know how much longer I have to do what I do.

So we need some younger memory keepers out there to tell stories that are marginalized, that have been erased from our collective memories.

In the spirit of Dr. Williams, I'm not sure what more we can say about the importance of this amazing community that can't be said better by the legacy of Jefferson Street embodied in the music of Saaneah and her family.

(SINGING) Oooh-oooh.

Can y'all stand for me a little bit?

[music playing] (SINGING) Ohhh.

Here we go, y'all.

[inaudible] Every time I see your face, I light up and my heart starts racing.

Don't know how much more I can take because I want you now.

Try so hard to be calm and cool.

I don't want to look like no fool.

Around your body, can't hide the truth.

I want you now.

Say what?

I can see, I can see, I can see, yeah, 'cause you look so good to me, I can see [inaudible] [applause] Thank y'all so much for being here.

There's so much more to explore, and we want you to join us on The Good Road.

For more in-depth content, meet us on the internet at thegoodroad.tv.

Hear more great stories, connect to organizations, and make sure you download our podcast, Philanthropology.

Funding for The Good Road has been provided by.

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Toyota-- let's go places.

Technology changes the world, but not on its own.

Hardware needs heart.

Software needs soul.

When we match compute power to instinct and acceleration to imagination, tomorrow comes alive.

For us, it's not what we achieve alone, but sharing a vision to solve the world's most important challenges, because together, anything is possible.

AMD-- together we advance.

And by Uncommon Giving, the generosity company.

At Plow and Hearth, we believe that the place you are can become the place you want to be.

Philanthropy Journal-- stories about bold people changing the world.

[music playing]