In late Summer 2020, the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) is scheduled to open here in Nashville. With a prime location downtown at 5th and Broadway, NMAAM will provide an opportunity to showcase the many contributions individuals of African descent have made to the musical landscape not only in this country but abroad.
At our meeting yesterday morning, AAHGS Nashville was delighted to host Dr. Steven Lewis, curator at NMAAM, as he shared with us an overview of the museum’s development history and extensive details about the museum’s layout, exhibits, and programs.
Dr. Lewis showing the museum location on 5th and Broadway
This museum is going to be just incredible!
The exhibits will feature 5 main galleries and there will be additional gallery space for rotating exhibits. The five main galleries and their central themes include:
Wade in the Water – music reflecting the religious experience
Crossroads – about the emergence of the blues
A Love Supreme – jazz music
One Nation Under A Groove – funk, r&b music
The Message – hip-hop music
Additionally, the museum has artifacts and items from individuals affiliated with many different segments of the music industry and the educational immersion via the exhibits are very well designed. There will be a theater that seats almost 200 individuals, a digital hub and music research library, community meeting spaces, and more.
Rap interactive in “The Message” gallery
Many thanks to Dr. Lewis for sharing with us so extensively about the museum.
Visit the museum website to learn more and consider becoming a member and/or signing up for their email news list.
In 1850 and 1860, there were special census surveys conducted to record enslaved individuals. Known as the “slave schedules,” these records included the slaveholder name and a list of all enslaved person they owned. Each enslaved person however, was usually not recorded with a name. Instead, the listing was often organized in reverse chronological age order, usually with each person represented by sex, age, and color.
Example entry from 1850 Slave Schedule
This week, FamilysSearch announced the addition of the 1860 US Census Slave Schedule to their website, which means they can now be accessed for free! FamilySearch already had the 1850 US Census Slave Schedule so now both are freely available.
While usually not conclusive when used alone, in tandem with other resources, such as wills, probate, and tax records, the slave schedules can provide additional insight into your investigation.
Will books often contain many details that can help break the “brick wall” often experienced when researching enslaved individuals prior to emancipation. To aid Davidson County researchers, the Nashville Metro Archives now offers an online database of names of enslaved individuals found in Davidson County records.
The Slave and Free People of Color Database provides access to thousands of names of enslaved individuals found in Davidson County will books. Additional data points may include:
the type of record (e.g., will, bill of sale, estate inventory, settlement)
the slaveholder’s name
the slaveholder’s residence
enslaved individual’s age and sex
family relationships
whom the enslaved individual was transferred to
details about the entry, such as date, will book, and page numbers.
Today’s workshop was a delight as we were led through an engaging session on writing your personal and family history with our very own AAHGS Nashville member, Deborah Wilbrink. Deborah has in-depth experience in writing and helping individuals and organizations tell and share their stories. She brought samples of her work and referred to them often during the talk.
display of Deborah’s portfolio of work
As a workshop, the session was interactive and we did several brief exercises to help us understand strategies, processes, and techniques to write our stories. We even had opportunity to share brief stories from our families and Deborah demonstrated how even these brief snippets we shared can be part of the backbone of a larger personal story-telling narrative.
sharing some of our own stories
Overall, our workshop today was motivating and I think more than one of us left determined to get started telling the stories of our lives.
Through her company, Perfect Memoirs, Deborah offers services to help with personal family story telling so you’ll want to check out her website – www.perfectmemoirs.com. You can sign up for her blog, through which she shares how-to tips. You may also want to consider picking up a copy of her book, “Time to Tell Your Personal & Family History,” which is filled with how-to-tips meant to inspire and motivate. I picked up mine!
Deborah & Taneya
Many thanks Deborah for an educational workshop! We have much to take with us as we pursue writing our own personal histories.
Brigette Jones speaking to the AAHGS Nashville audience
Our AAHGS Nashville meeting today featured a rousing presentation by Brigette Jones, Director of African American Studies for the Belle Meade Plantation Museum.
1844 runaway slave ad from William G. Harding
In her talk, Ms. Jones not only gave us an accounting of the lives of the enslaved population at the plantation but also drew stark parallels between the situations faced by those individuals in the past and the situations faced by African Americans throughout the course of time since slavery and on up to present day.
Ms. Jones shared for us the stories of some of the known enslaved individuals and their contributions to the plantation, including:
Ben – who ran away in 1818
Ned – Ben’s replacement, who also ran away in 1818
Susana McGavock Carter – a house servant for the Harding family
Bob Green – head hostler (in charge of the horses)
Susanna McGavock Carter
It was a fascinating talk and if you’d like to learn more, you will definitely want to attend the Journey to Jubilee tour and get an in-depth perspective of what life was like those enslaved at Belle Meade. Thank you, Ms. Jones, for sharing their stories with us today and challenging us to reflect on the difficult intergenerational effects of slavery.
Relevant resources for today’s talk include:
Fisk Slave Narratives – project started in 1929 collected by Fisk University’s Charles S. Johnson and Ophelia Settles Egypt
Today, AAHGS Nashville hosted a tour at the Nashville Zoo to learn about the African American history on site. We greatly appreciate the time spent with us by the Historic Site Manager, Tori Mason, and her team. It was educational and moving. If you aren’t familiar with the history of the Grassmere Farm and the evolution to the Zoo, you will definitely want to keep reading.
Grassmere House and the Croft Sisters
Tori Mason begins the tour of the Grassmere Home
The Zoo has a unique origin story. The Grassmere Farm, the site on which the Zoo was established, used to be owned by the Croft sisters, Margaret and Elise. The home was built in 1810 by their 2nd great-grandfather, Michael C. Dunn, making Margaret and Elise the 5th generation to live in the home. In the 1960s, facing the possibility of losing the home and the farm, the sisters accepted an offer for the home and lands to belong to the Nashville Children’s Museum (now the Adventure Science Center) upon their passing. There was one caveat — the property was to be used to educate the public about animals and the environment, for the sisters LOVED and cared deeply about animals and nature. Thus, that is what it became; first, Grassmere Wildlife Park in 1990, and then later in the 1990s, the Zoo was invited to relocate there. The Zoo is the perfect testament to the desires of the sisters and the Zoo does a great job with education and preservation! You can read more history on the Zoo’s website.
The enslaved population at Grassmere
excerpt from the 1860 slave census schedules – some slaves owned by William D. Shute
As to be expected given the time period, the Grassmere Home, as well as all of the buildings on the property, was built with the labor of enslaved individuals. Currently, estimates are that about 30-35 individuals were enslaved by the families on average. In addition to building the property, those enslaved by the families worked the crops and raised livestock. Unfortunately, only a few of their names are known – Ben, Henderson, Louie, and Flora were some names identified through family records. Though many of their names are not known, they were, absolutely, a fundamental part of the Grassmere Farm workings and operations.
Dedication marker for the enslaved cemetery
Particularly moving from our visit today, was learning about the enslaved cemetery found on the property in 1989. The cemetery, originally located to the immediate right as you enter the Zoo through the admission gate, was relocated near the home itself in 2014. The cemetery contains the remains of 20 individuals and while, again, their names are not known, the DNA and archeological studies that were done have given insight into the community. The individuals were buried there between the 1820s-1850s and were buried in clothing and wooden coffins (rather than just shrouds and placed directly into the ground). As noted in a September 18, 2014, USA Today article, “six individuals had arthritis. One man walked with a limp, a woman endured fractured vertebrae in her lower spine”, and Tori informed us today that the man with gout was only 19 years old and tall (about 6 feet, 2 inches) and that one woman was 22 weeks pregnant at the time of her death. Amazing to be able to know these details. Called the “Unknown 20”, the cemetery dedication marker reads “Here lie 20 unknown individuals who lived here and worked on the property. Reinterred with reverence at this site on the 12th day of June 2014.”
The Morton Family
Frank Morton & son Albert, 1957
After emancipation, African Americans continued to be fundamental to the operation and ongoing running of the Grassmere property – particularly, the Morton Family. The patriarch, Frank Morton, started at Grassmere in 1919 and Elise Croft credits him with teaching her everything she knew about running a farm. You can hear her discuss him in a 1964 audio clip in the Tennessee Electronic Virtual Archives collection of the Tennessee State Library & Archives (check out the whole Grassmere Collection archive on the site).
Morton family cabin
Frank worked and lived at Grassmere until his death in 1962. His nine children were all raised there – including son Albert who continued to work there after his father’s passing, and daughters Maude, Vera, and Rosie. The cabin behind the home, which is an actual slave cabin that was moved there from elsewhere on the property, was where Frank and his family lived. The whole Morton family was critical to the farm and as Tori stated today, “This property would not have existed without the Morton family.”
What’s Next for the Zoo?
Inside Frank’s cabin
Within the next year or so, the Zoo plans to add onto telling the stories of the Morton Family. There is an empty half of the slave cabin that they plan to open as an exhibit so visitors can learn even more. The Zoo team has oral history from some of Frank’s granddaughters who have recounted their memories of visiting him in the cabin. Family traditions, such as painting the ceiling, window frames, and door frames “haint blue” are evident – there is so much more of the story to tell.
All, in all, our time there was invaluable. It was informative and it is good to see the Zoo embrace and share the whole range of the history on site – and making purposeful strides to be inclusive of the African American contributions. A day of learning indeed.
This year, AAHGS Nashville will be holding our chapter meetings & workshops at Fort Negley, a fortification constructed in Nashville during the Civil War and the largest inland fort built in the United States. Fort Negley was constructed using the labor of more than 2700 black laborers and soldiers. To prepare for our meetings, our chapter president and I visited the meeting space and I was particularly taken with the current exhibit.
Seventeen Men exhibit at Ft. Negley
In the space is a stunning exhibit of 17 life-sized color pencil drawings by artist, illustrator, and genealogist, Shayne Davidson. Shayne learned about a tiny (2 inches tall) photo album that had been owned by William A. Prickitt, who had been captain of Company G of the 25th United States Colored Troop regiment.
Cover of William A. Prickett’s album
There were 113 men in the unit and Prickett’s album had pictures of 17 of them. The book is now in the collections of the National Museum of African American History & Culture. Shayne wanted to know more so researched each man in the book to create biographical profiles of them and then created these stunning drawings.
Of the 17 men, 3 had connections to Tennessee; Corporal Solomon Frister settled here in Nashville, Private John Walls settled near Memphis, and Private James Tall was born in Murfreesboro.
Shayne Davidson’s drawing of Corporal Solomon Frister
Frister is buried in Mt. Ararat Cemetery and our AAHGS Nashville friend, Kathy Lauder, featured him in one of the biographical profiles from her Greenwood Cemetery project, a project to document those interred at Nashville’s historic African-American cemetery.
Kathy Lauder bio of Corporal Solomon Frister
The lives of these seventeen men are certainly worth knowing more about.
AAHGS Nashville invites you to join us June 23, 2018, from 1- 4 pm at Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage to learn strategies and tips for researching your family history. This session will be conducted in partnership withThe Hermitage’s Juneteenth Commemoration.
New to family history research? Come out and learn how to get jump-started! Well-seasoned in genealogy? Come and bring friends along who may not know the ins-and-outs!
After a 1-hour presentation, we will have one-on-one consultation sessions to provide individualized advice.
The event is free and open to the public. We look forward to seeing you there!
AAHGS Nashville invites you to join us February 3, 2018, from 1- 4 pm at the Nashville Public Library to learn strategies and tips for researching your family history. New to family history research? Come out and learn how to get jump-started! Well-seasoned in genealogy? Come and bring friends along who may not know the ins-and-outs!
After a 1-hour presentation, we will have one-on-one consultation sessions to provide individualized advice.
Dr. Mattie Elizabeth Howard Coleman was a prominent figure in Nashville’s African American history. A 1906 graduate of Meharry Medical College’s School of Dentistry, Dr. Coleman was a medical, religious, and community service pioneer.
This weekend, Saturday, October 14th, Capers Memorial Christian Methodist Episcopal Church will honor Dr. Coleman with a wreath laying at her internment site in Greenwood Cemetery. The church is celebrating the Centennial Celebration of the Women’s Missionary Council and invites members of the public to attend. More details are available here.
AAHGS Nashville 