💬 Nashville teens on why they feel unsafe

💬 Nashville Teens Feel Unsafe

It’s been nearly a month since the Antioch High School shooting, and many teens feel that more could be done to protect them and their schools. [Nashville Banner]

• Teens from Nashville suburbs are speaking out about the recent wave of book bans that have led schools to remove more than 1,100 books. [The Tennessean]

🏠 Affordable Housing Coalition Meets With Lawmakers

Housing for All Tennessee, a coalition of nonprofit groups, met with state lawmakers this week to discuss five bills that address our affordable housing crisis, urging them to pass three and criticizing two. [Nashville Scene]

• How our zoning policies limit middle-income housing [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

📹 Fusus Debate Continues

Due to incoming snow, Metro Council adjourned during a heated debate about guardrails around the use of Fusus surveillance technology. The debate will continue at the March 4 meeting. [Nashville Banner]

• The concerns about Fusus [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

🎵 Nashville’s Hip-Hop Scene

What will it take for Nashville hip-hop artists to get the resources they need? On today’s City Cast Nashville podcast, we’re chatting with WPLN senior music writer Jewly Hight about whether Music City can become a hip-hop hub. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

Tennessee State University has been in the news a lot lately, whether about its financial crisis or its new accelerated medical degree program. However, you might not know about TSU’s 112-year history, which includes training Olympians and student participation in the Civil Rights Movement. Here’s more about the history of Nashville’s only public four-year university, and one of our first HBCUs.

🏫 TSU’s Beginnings

When TSU opened its doors to 247 students on June 19, 1912, the university was called the Agricultural and Industrial Normal School, one of four such schools created by the Tennessee State General Assembly in 1909. The term “normal school” refers to a popular movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries to establish public universities focused on training teachers. Of the four normal schools created, TSU was the only one for Black students, and its name is said to reflect white preferences for Black vocational schooling.

William Jasper Hale, who was mixed race but white-passing, served as its first head of school. He hand-picked faculty members from Atlanta, Fisk, and Howard, and while he embraced the agricultural-themed curriculum he knew state leaders wanted, he secretly created a Black history course and called it Industrial Education, to mislead legislators.

From the beginning, TSU had issues securing state-promised grants. Hale leaned into racial stereotypes to secure at least some support by entertaining legislators on campus with Black students in uniform serving the meal, and other students outside working on the campus farm.

Despite these challenges, TSU continued to grow. In 1922, the school was granted the ability to award bachelor’s degrees, and the first degrees were handed out in 1924. The school’s motto was “Enter to learn; go forth to serve.” Hale retired in 1943, and a year later, the first master’s degrees were awarded.

In 1968, the university’s name officially changed to Tennessee State University.

✊🏿 TSU’s Role in the Civil Rights Movement

Many TSU students participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and were integral in desegregating Nashville via the Nashville sit-ins and Freedom Rides. Some students were expelled for their participation. In 2008, TSU awarded honorary doctorate degrees to 14 students it had expelled because they were jailed in Mississippi for riding a bus across state lines with white students.