Tennessee Voices, Episode 366: Angela Sutton, director, Fort Negley Descendants Project
Fort Negley was the largest Union fortification in the formerly Confederate South during the Civil War.
The fort was built by 4,933 enslaved and freed Black people in Nashville just south of the Capitol.
Although it went through decades of disrepair and neglect, descendants of the builders have known about its history and when development was proposed near it, a diverse coalition united to preserve Fort Negley.
On this episode of the Tennessee Voices video podcast, Angela Sutton, director of the Builders & Defenders Database and Fort Negley Descendants Project, spoke about the history and what is happening now to maintain it.
Sutton is also a Vanderbilt research assistant professor and assistant dean for Graduate Education and Academic Affairs.
She talked to me about nearby Bass Street, the first free Black neighborhood in Nashville and how it survived attacks by the Ku Klux Klan.
She also explained how Nashville is so connected to the fort and how slavery helped shape the city’s culture even as the Civil War divided families in the city.
Nashville is one of the birthplaces of freedom because of Fort Negley, she said.
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063 or email him at dplazas@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Video podcast: Angela Sutton, Fort Negley Descendants Project
