Tennessee

Civil War sign honoring first Black soldiers in Tennessee to fight on front lines unveiled

Published

2 years ago

December 16, 2022

Civil War sign honoring first Black soldiers in Tennessee to fight on front lines unveiled

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Greater than 150 years after the Battle of Nashville, an indication honoring the primary black fight troopers was unveiled Thursday exterior STEAM Academy.

“It exhibits that the story just isn’t solely necessary to me, however it’s necessary to our group, that the complete historical past story is instructed that African People contributed to the good nation and serving the navy,” acknowledged Gary Burke, a Battle of Nashville Soldier descendant.

After his personal father died, Burke discovered that his nice, nice grandfather fought on the entrance strains.

“After my father handed away, he had a sequence of paperwork from the Warfare Division and on the again of a type of paperwork it mentioned, my nice nice grandmother was receiving pension, from the Civil Warfare,” mentioned Burke. “In order that’s how I knew I had a direct descendant-ship to a soldier of the Civil Warfare.”

Burke mentioned it was an emotional discovering however impressed him to proceed as a Civil Warfare reenactor that he had already been doing for six years.

Claire Kopsky

Descendant of Battle of Nashville Solider Gary Burke

The Battle of Nashville Belief reached out to Burke to inform him concerning the new marker unveiling that was occurring close to the battle web site for the Battle of Nashville—a web site that actually tells a narrative.

“It was the Battle of Nashville—the Second Battle of Nashville. And this one is important as a result of you’ve gotten African People actively bearing arms to struggle for the federal facet. For a lot of of them. It was their first motion. It was their first time having folks truly shoot at them. So a variety of them have been actually not seasoned troopers, on the time. Though that they had been skilled. This was their first real-time and battle,” defined Tennessee State College Historian Dr. Learotha Williams.

For greater than 100 years, the truth that black troopers fought was largely unknown and definitely, uncelebrated. Williams mentioned a lot of that needed to do with the shortage of literacy inflicting not a lot to be written down.

“Notably throughout this time, as a result of their presence was oftentimes marginalized and erased in lots of cases from our collective reminiscence while you’re taking a look at Black troopers from this era, you understand, it is a research in reminiscence, however it’s additionally a research in amnesia,” mentioned Williams. “Whereas I used to be in grad college, we have been taught that 620,000 folks died through the Civil Warfare. Two years in the past, that quantity has been cracked as much as be elevated moderately to about 800,000.”

“We all know that African People have been very a lot part of build up the defenses right here. We all know that they shaped items that have been stationed right here,” defined Williams. “Throughout the metropolis that has a gazillion Civil Warfare markers, what number of of them are African People that speak concerning the position African People performed? Perhaps two, amongst all these that we now have.”

The Battle of Nashville Belief (BONT), Nashville Conference & Guests Corp. (Go to Music Metropolis), STEM Prep Academy, and Civil Warfare Trails, Inc. got here collectively to make this challenge a actuality after three years of analysis, overview, and planning. After securing a grant from the Tennessee Wars Fee in July 2020 the BONT solicited the experience Williams.

The signal is a part of the multi-state tourism program. Civil Warfare Trails Government Director Drew Gruber mentioned the placement of the signal is “on the web site the place for the primary time in Tennessee regiments of Black males, many previously enslaved, fought for his or her freedom as United States troopers. Additionally it is one of many solely slivers of battlefield remaining within the quickly rising Nashville space.”

Metropolis leaders, state leaders, and people instrumental to the creation and historical past behind the Civil Warfare signal met December 15, 2022, to unveil the brand new signal.

Williams defined the burden of the knowledge that he studied and wrote on the signal.

“They [the black soldiers] knew intuitively, they knew that violence was the factor that held slavery collectively, proper? So if their enslaved did not have the whip, or the weapons or the knives or no matter, slavery would not exist. By the identical token, they understood that violence was most likely going to be the factor that broke it and on the finish of the day, that is what it was,” interpreted Williams.

Burke additionally mentioned the signal unveiled Thursday is rather more than a marker: “It is good to know that the subsequent technology learns a little bit bit about native historical past, that it is our historical past collectively. That it is not black historical past, it’s American historical past.”

To learn extra about different Civil Warfare path makers in Tennessee and in different states, go to their web site.

Two people with household ties to those that fought on the battlefield the place the Civil Warfare Trails signal was positioned have been in attendance for the disclosing December 15, 2022.

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Related Topics:battle of nashville black history civil war civil war nashville civil war trail makers Featured Local News newsbreak smartnews

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Tennessee

Titans RB Out vs. Texans

Published

6 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

The Tennessee Titans are finishing up their practice runs before facing the Houston Texans in Week 12, but there is a key player on the offense who won’t be making the trip to the Lone Star State.

According to team reporter Jim Wyatt, running back Tyjae Spears has been ruled out for the team’s game against the Texans as he has yet to clear the league’s concussion protocol.

Spears, a second-year pro out of Tulane, has been bit many times by the injury bug this season. The Week 12 contest will mark Spears’ fourth game missed this season.

So far this season, Spears has ran the ball 43 times for 161 yards and a touchdown.

With Spears out, starting running back Tony Pollard will continue to have a bulk of the carries while Julius Chestnut and Josh Kelley handle backup duties.

Also out for the Titans is offensive tackle Leroy Watson IV. Linebacker Jack Gibbens and cornerback L’Jarius Sneed are also ruled out on the injury report, but both of them will be placed on injured reserve.

Kickoff between the Titans and Texans is set for 12 noon CT on Sunday inside NRG Stadium.

Make sure you bookmark Tennessee Titans on SI for the latest news, exclusive interviews, film breakdowns and so much more!

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Tennessee

Tennessee must see through Gov. Bill Lee’s new try at expanding school vouchers | Opinion

Published

13 hours ago

November 22, 2024

Press Room

Tennessee must see through Gov. Bill Lee’s new try at expanding school vouchers | Opinion

Vouchers are the school’s choice, not school choice.
Vouchers allow discrimination on special needs kids and any family who doesn’t fit the school’s “values.”

Caleb Hemmer
| Guest columnist

As expected, Gov. Bill Lee and his Republican supermajority in the legislature have filed their latest version of a statewide voucher proposal.

Once again, this new version is jam-packed with all kinds of seemingly nice things tacked on to try and distract people from the fact that this is all a scam designed to defund public education. Lee and his voucher scammers want you to pay attention to the long overdue teacher raises and the newly-dedicated funding source for school construction projects promised in the bill.

But let’s face it − if they were really serious about the proposals, they would have already done them. They wouldn’t have to tie them to a bait-and-switch scheme to designed to undermine public education and make out-of-state billionaire voucher backers happy.

Vouchers aren’t improving student school test scores

Here’s what’s underneath all the pretty packaging. Here’s what Governor Lee is not telling you about his voucher scam:

First of all, Lee wants you believe that he wants to expand vouchers statewide because of the success of the pilot program. However, the pilot program is not a proven success.

In fact, Lee’s own handpicked education commissioner had to admit before the Senate Education Committee this past January that the academic scores of the students in the voucher program, well, in her own words: “aren’t anything to write home about.”

In fact, according to the Department of Education’s annual report on the pilot program, the “exceeded expectations” scores for the state’s participating Education Savings Accounts schools only grew by an average of 0.4% in math and 1.2% in English Language Arts − and far less than the margins of public schools.

So since, the test scores aren’t dramatically improving, the governor wants to direct your attention to how the parents currently enrolled the program are satisfied with it. But again, let’s look at who those parents really are.

Vouchers do not cover the cost of the average private school

The average price of a private school in Nashville is estimated to cost around $12,000. In Memphis, it’s a little under $10,500. So, if you wanted to send to your child to a private school, you’re still going to have to be able pay thousands of additional dollars a year just for tuition.

That doesn’t include transportation or any other needs.

So, the people Lee claims he really wants to help − the working people who are struggling to put food on the table − are still priced out.

For example, according to a 2023 Time magazine article, in Arizona more than 75% of new voucher applicants had never actually attended public school before and not to mention the uncontrolled $1.4 billion hole vouchers caused in Arizona’s budget.

Vouchers leave out the most vulnerable students

Finally, as the governor gives out these “entitlement” payments to families that can already afford it, our public schools get further left behind.

Private schools get to pick their students, meaning that many students are excluded, including the most vulnerable who need the most help.

Vouchers end up excluding most disadvantaged students because they simply aren’t desirable for many private schools. That includes students with disabilities who use Individualized Education Plans, which this bill expressively says private schools don’t have to continue.

Vouchers are the school’s choice, not school choice.

Vouchers allow discrimination on special needs kids and any family who doesn’t fit the school’s “values.”

I would urge people to not be fooled by all of the shiny bells and whistles attached to this new voucher scam bill. Don’t be fooled by the words the governor is saying − take a good, hard look at what he’s not telling you.

Vouchers aren’t good education policy or conservative; it’s just a scam to defund your local school to align to a misguided political ideology.

State Rep. Caleb Hemmer, D-Nashville, represents District 59 (part of Davidson County) in the Tennessee General Assembly.

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Tennessee

Watch: Gretchen Walsh Cracks NCAA Record in 100 Butterfly (Tennessee Invite Day 2 Race Videos)

Published

22 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Press Room

Watch: Gretchen Walsh Cracks NCAA Record in 100 Butterfly (Tennessee Invite Day 2 Race Videos)

2024 Tennessee Invite

The third day of the 2024 Tennessee Invite saw lots of action, with the unique setup of the meet, the A-finals were contested in a 1-on-1 format that brought many fans to their feet and proved to bring an extra layer of excitement to the meet. UVA’s Gretchen Walsh built on that excitement to continue her record-breaking streak, shattering her own American, US Open, and NCAA Record in the 100 butterfly with a time of 47.35.

Even though the day might be over, you can relive all of the action with the race videos below. Courtesy of the University of Virginia.

WOMEN’S 200 MEDLEY RELAY- TIMED FINALS

NCAA Record: 1:31.73, Virginia- 2023
2025 NCAA ‘A’ Cut: 1:36.24
2025 NCAA ‘B’ Cut: 1:36.76

Virginia A- 1:32.58 A
Tennessee A- 1:34.35 A
Virginia B- 1:35.89
Tennessee B- 1:37.94
Kentucky A- 1:39.66
Kentucky B- 1::41.35

Race Video:

MEN’S 200 MEDLEY RELAY- TIMED FINALS

NCAA Record: 1:20.15, Florida- 2024
2025 NCAA ‘A’ Cut: 1:23.62
2025 NCAA ‘B’ Cut: 1:23.90

Tennessee A- 1:21.71 A
Tennessee B- 1:25.31
Kentucky A- 1:26.75
Kentucky B- 1:27.48
Virginia A- DQ
Virginia B- DQ

Race Video:

WOMEN’S 100 FLY – FINALS

~~NCAA Record: 47.42, Gretchen Walsh (UVA) – 2024~~ 47.35, Gretchen Walsh (UVA)- 2024
2025 NCAA ‘A’ Cut: 50.52
2025 NCAA ‘B’ Cut: 53.34
2024 NCAA Cutline: 51.88