We should move both carefully and with conviction on the question of Salemtown's Fehr School

The planned exit of the Metro Action Commission out of historic Fehr School on 5th Avenue in Salemtown has been moved back once again, this time from June to August. The building has never been suitable to dispensing to large groups of people in need of federal aid to pay utility bills, and it was a strain on MAC staff, clients (many of whom lined up in freezing cold and broiling hot temps), and the neighborhood, which was sometimes trashed by the crush of clients. Moreover, the promises to move MAC to more realistic digs elsewhere have gone unrealized for years.

MAC client lines

Even though we are facing another delay, at least the Metro gears seem to be moving this time and MAC is talking seriously about the move when they attend Salemtown association meetings each month. So, the next item on the agenda for Salemtown is to make sure that the Fehr School Building, which was one of the foci of Nashville's famous civil rights history does not undergo any radical structural changes. Salemtown Neighbors has already approved an initiative for a petition to protect the old school. And at our June business meeting MAC mentioned that the building is already protected as historic property, including a plaque that will be posted. They told the association that the historic 5th Avenue side will not be altered, but that a 4th Avenue entrance will be created.

I conducted a search of the federal and state registers for the preservation designation that MAC talked about, but I could not find any record of it. I followed up with MAC officials who told me that someone in Metro General Services had told them. MAC also conjectured that the historical register for Fehr may still be in progress. They also told me that they would follow up to confirm and then get back to me. That was over two weeks ago, and I have yet to receive any confirmation.

About the same time, CM Erica Gilmore responded to Salemtown queries about Fehr by promising her support for historic preservation of the school building and she notified Tim Walker at the Metro Historical Commission. This was excellent news and we hope that CM Gilmore is vigorously pursuing this, although we have not heard back from her yet either.

Another wrinkle in these events is mention in yesterday's Tennessean that some Germantown parents, disgruntled by recent redistricting that knocked them out of wildly popular Eakin Elementary's bailiwick in West Nashville are now spying Fehr as an alternative to sending the kids to one of several other options in around the North End area (full disclosure: our 7-year-old attends Jones Paideia Magnet, one of those options):

Some Germantown residents hoped the city would consider converting the Metro Action Commission building at 1624 Fifth Ave. N. into a magnet school when a portion of the agency relocates downtown next month. But many of the agency’s departments, including one of its Head Start locations, will remain there.

[School board member Ed] Kindall says he’s open to discussing the issues with concerned parents and advises neighborhood groups to come up with a plan and make a recommendation to the Metro School Board.

For years on this blog I have advocated the preservation and the re-purposing of Fehr for education. But let's keep first things are first. We need to make sure that this living museum to school desegregation is historically protected from drastic alterations to the exterior and from the wrecking ball. Getting it on the historic register ought to be the number one goal now. Despite being a vigorous advocate of re-purposing the building as a school over the years, I frankly worry that if these Germantown parents move too fast it will be flipped into a privatized charter school or an objectionable group like Stand for Children will sweep in and take power away from the community in determining the educational needs of our children.

As someone who has been pushing for these changes at Fehr for 6 years, I would encourage the community to move a step-at-a-time on the building. Let's leverage protection, and then discuss re-purposing as a public school, including making sure that Head Start (which will stay at Fehr and is after all an education program) will continue to be welcome in our area. Salemtown is Fehr School's home, and we are one of the more economically and racially diverse neighborhoods in the North End. We should commit ourselves to the goal of converting Fehr into a place that invites diversity, remains open to all, and honors its history of desegregation. It should not become a shelter for mostly white, middle class gentrifiers with kids.

Fehr School: Nashville's civil rights history vs. the Metro Action Commission

Last week I spoke with my council member about progress to a rezoning measure that would preserve the historic facade of Salemtown's Fehr school. Erica Gilmore met with a Historical Commission representative, Cynthia Croom from the Metro Action Commission and lawyers representing each of the parties. Metro Action controls the Fehr property, which currently houses North Nashville Head Start. Apparently Ms. Croom dug in her heels and refused to lend MAC support for a historic overlay for the former public school building saying that her department needs to be free to make any changes to the exterior that the federal government requires of them.

So, the side backing down was the CM and the Historical Commission, which support an overlay for the endangered building. A council lawyer is supposed to be working on an ordinance. CM Gilmore told me that the proposed ordinance would protect the historic facade in the case Metro Action ever relinquishes control of the school building.

However and in the mean time, Metro Action would be allowed to make any alteration to the building's exterior that strikes them as necessary. If they want to re-orient the front of the building away from 5th to 4th and brick up the current entrance they can. If they want to punch a hole in the brick wall to add a utility room, HVAC handling room, or a dining hall they would not be restricted by ordinance. If they want to build a new facade over the old one to front the sidewalk they could. They can do whatever they want to the old building.

In my one-on-one discussions with Cynthia Croom in the past she reacted with what seemed to me to be profound allergies to the idea of rezoning to protect the historical qualities of the building from the unforgiving and arbitrary designs of the federal government. She did not express any openness to working toward a win-win with those of us in Nashville trying to protect this important landmark. Instead, she made it clear that she was unwilling to bend to any possibilities other than those decorating her own turf.

So, I was not surprised to learn from Erica Gilmore that Ms. Croom is still unwaveringly opposed to protecting the building from radical alteration. My support of preserving history has nothing to do with not wanting a federal program like Head Start in my neighborhood. I think it is wonderful that kids from families of modest means are continuing to use a living museum. However, I don't believe that Metro Action should be allowed to do whatever it wants to the front of the building to justify the drive for more federal revenues.

In the end, if the MAC Executive Director wants to ignore the sacred civil rights history of Fehr School and demo the entire facade she can do so. She can prepare budget proposals that could bury the memorial to the brave Salemtown children who desegregated the school in the name of caring for Head Start kids now. I tend to be a pragmatist about Metro ordinances. However, protecting the Fehr School building beginning at some indefinite future date when Metro Action moves Head Start to another place seems to me like legislation without any teeth since any alteration is permitted to MAC, including the more extreme forms that would render the ordinance silly once it becomes enforceable because of the lack of any history to protect.

Salemtown's Fehr School: One of the "Most Protest Buffeted" Centers of Nashville Desegregation

Irate segregationists exchanging words with supporters of desegregation at Fehr Elementary School, 5th Avenue, North and Garfield Street, Nashville, TN; 9 September 1957. Police escorted African American students into the school, marking the first day of public school desegregation in Nashville (photo courtesy of Nashville Public Library, Special Collections; all rights reserved; do not copy or publish without express consent from Nashville Public Library)

One would hardly believe looking at the quiet Fehr School building in Salemtown today that it was one of the early centers of the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville, a city itself considered a cradle for the tectonic shifts of social change that erupted in the 1960s across the South. But in the late 1950s, Nashville joined Little Rock in the infamy of local segregationist resistance to the Supreme Court's Brown v. the Board of Education ruling declaring the separation of black and white public schools a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

According to John Egerton, on a rainy night in September 1957, Salemtown's Fehr Elementary School building narrowly missed segregationist destruction after an infamous New Jersey white supremacist, John Kasper, whipped a mob up into a belligerent frenzy on the steps of the state capitol 2 miles to the south. In his narrative, Walking into History, Edgerton notes that a white mob of four or five hundred roamed Salemtown streets that night. They set structures owned by black families on 6th Avenue on fire and they lit crosses in their yards.

Nashville police moved into Salemtown to disperse the mobs and stop the violence, but the domestic terrorists moved elsewhere and spawned a rumor that Fehr would be blown up at midnight. The elementary at the corner of 5th and Garfield survived segregationist sacking, but across the river in east Nashville they dynamited Hattie Cotton School for the crime of letting one little black girl attend class earlier that day.

Today it seems beyond belief that so much hatred was reserved for the entirely fair notion that innocent African American 6-year-olds should start school in nearby classrooms with white 6-year-olds. Salemtown joined 5 other neighborhoods that day in the Nashville Plan to desegregate public schools. Across Nashville on September 9, 16 families dressed their 6th graders for the first day at new schools closer to their homes than their assigned segregated schools, and walked them through white mob hails of shouts and slurs--and sometimes rocks and bottles--into buildings like Fehr where public school officials welcomed them warmly. Tomorrow I'll tell the story of Salemtowners who marched down Garfield from 6th Av. so that their children could go to school at Fehr.

In September 1957, Salemtown was a largely white working class neighborhood with 18 black first graders zoned for Fehr. Only 4 showed up for class on September 9. That seems no surprise because, according to Egerton, whites were trolling streets in cars adorned with "KKK signs, Bible quotations, Confederate flags," and standing along sidewalks shouting abusive epithets at parents walking their children to school. Around half the white children zoned for Fehr stayed home, many boycotting in a first fit of "white flight." To add injury to the insults, a black custodian was assaulted by whites, who also slashed the tires on his car, when he attempted to take down the American flag at the end of the day.

When I launched Enclave I quoted Peter Taylor who wrote of the ghosts of Nashville past that they were "real and present somehow." Looking at the Fehr School building now, it is hard to see the ghosts of the contention and unrest of September 1957. But realizing that 6-year-old children were subjected to seething, bitter, and spitting hatred because they dared nothing more than going to school gives me pause. I wonder if malevolent energy still stains and stalks the pathways, but I also hope the good will and bravery of people who welcomed and witnessed integration of a higher form of community is around our corners and about the intersections, too.

A special anniversary in Salemtown history

On this day 56 years ago, 4 children desegregated Salemtown's Fehr School, braving the taunts and threats of segregationists and KKK members while walking a mob-gauntlet. There also were threats of bombing the building.

On this day 2 years ago, Historic Nashville, Inc. held a news conference on the steps of Fehr proclaiming it one of Nashville's most endangered buildings in need preservation.

Around that time we started a petition to save Fehr. That petition leveraged a historic landmark overlay for it and the Warner House building behind it; the overlay was passed by the Metro Council and signed by the Mayor nearly one year ago.

Today we remember the ones whose nerve made Fehr School a very special place in Salemtown history. We also rededicate ourselves to preserving that history so that Nashville never forgets.

With the Metro Historical Commission on board, the movement to save Fehr School grows and gains momentum

Last June, CM Erica Gilmore expressed her support for Salemtown Neighbor's initiative to save the historic Fehr School building. Respecting Ms. Gilmore's focus on winning re-election, we did not distract her from her campaign once she expressed her support. However, as soon as she won re-election in August, Salemtown officers re-engaged CM Gilmore and she followed up with the Historical Commission about our next steps.

Tim Walker, Executive Director of the Historical Commission, met with neighborhood leaders and CM Gilmore at Fehr a few days before the building was declared one of the "2011 Nashville Nine" endangered buildings by a local preservationist non-profit. Mr. Walker told us that the MHC had been already been interested in preserving the school building for some time because of its age and its place in the history of the Civil Rights Movement. We toured the building looking at the old auditorium and stage long since converted and subdivided into office space. We looked over the foyer with its East Tennessee granite architecture and plaque designating the 1924 construction date and other details. We observed the classrooms and the old hardwood floors.

When we pow-wowed outside after the tour, all present expressed even more excitement about preserving the building than we had before. CM Gilmore committed to working on Metro legislation to get an overlay for the building. She is also contacting State Representative Brenda Gilmore about trying to get state recognition for Fehr, including a bronze plaque outside. Director Walker committed to working with the neighborhood once the legislation begins to move to passage. The neighborhood leaders agreed that we would do everything we can to get association support for the initiative. It will require at least a couple of hundred dollars on our part to fund mailings, newspaper ad, and signs to notify property owners around the school building when the legislation will be up for consideration.

But I was also surprised to learn that another building near the school also owned by Metro Action may be even older, by as much as 75 years, than the Fehr School building itself. Tim Walker said that the Historical Commission was interested in preserving the house across 4th Avenue North from the school building if it dated back to the American Civil War as he believed it might.

Photo credit: Google Maps

We walked over to take a closer look, and Mr. Walker pointed to the limestone foundation and the pattern of bricklaying--contrasting rows of bricks laid end-to-end and side-to-side--as indeed indicating mid-19th century craftsmanship. So, if those indications prove to be true, we will have two buildings that deserve preservation and fortunately both are owned by Metro government, which may make accountability for protecting them easier than if either were privately owned. The only question remaining is whether Salemtown should work to save both the Fehr School building and the house at one time or the school building first as planned.

Right now we need to focus on taking every step necessary, including raising the needed funds to save Fehr School. I consider this to be the most important project Salemtown Neighbors has ever pursued, because of its historical magnitude and the legacy it leaves for our North Nashville community and our city.

This month a historic 53rd anniversary for Salemtown, but local historic preservation community ignores us

While the news media is celebrating Historic Nashville, Inc's second annual list of properties endangered and in need of preserving, nobody that I am reading is holding HNI accountable for the properties it has not cited.

One of those unmentioned structures has been standing at 5th and Garfield in Salemtown for 86 years, and yet 53 years ago this month it came very close to being bombed by segregationists who descended on this neighborhood to protest Nashville's attempt to desegregate schools. The stories of mobs in the hundreds running around Salemtown and of little children harassed by white thugs while walking down Garfield toward their appointed classes can be found both here and here.

Fehr is not listed among HNI's historic schools. Moreover, in last year's list of endangered neighborhood schools, HNI made no reference to Fehr, even though they cited another school building that like Fehr was no longer being used as a school. If preservation leaders refuse to mention Fehr, it might as well be invisible to potentially sympathetic audiences.

Nonetheless, in September 1957, weeks before the National Guard and the national news media immortalized the "Little Rock Nine," four of Salemtown's eighteen African American first graders showed up for their first day of school amidst bomb threats, hurled epithets, and at least one school employee assaulted by white mobs. There were no federalized troops around for extra protection.

In spite of Nashville's forgetfulness, these events should be commemorated by preserving, honoring, and repurposing Fehr school for education as a living museum in honor of those first graders. Historic Nashville, Inc is doing local history a disservice by failing to acknowledge the role Fehr school played in the steady American march toward racial equality and justice September 1957.

RIP, John Egerton

Nashville resident and author of southern culture, John Egerton has died according to local news reports. Mr. Egerton's civil rights writing touched on the history of Salemtown with his narrative to the film, A Child Shall Lead Them. In 2009, I started blogging on the history of desegregation at Salemtown's Fehr School with an interest in getting Metro to preserve and protect that historic building as a living civil rights museum. Nearly all of my information on Fehr came from John Egerton. I can say without a doubt that Mr. Egerton made preservation of the Fehr School building possible. Please join me in grateful remembrance of John Egerton.

How you can help raise money to preserve a civil rights movement landmark

Salemtown Neighbors needs to raise $500 to protect Fehr School

Salemtown's Fehr School, built in 1924, was one of the first schools desegregated and was a center of civil rights strife in 1957. Because of its place in Nashville history, Historic Nashville, Inc. has declared it one of the 2011 Nashville Nine most endangered local buildings.

Salemtown Neighbors has a petition and is working with Council Member Erica Gilmore and the Metro Historical Commission to pass historic overlay for Fehr School and to preserve the exterior from demolition or drastic alteration that would destroy its historic qualities.

Planning Commission consideration of an overlay requires the neighborhood association to raise funds to notify residents who live around the building of the request for rezoning. Those funds will pay for postage, signage, and notice in the Tennessean, costs totaling over $500 according to the Planning Department.

Please help raise these funds to preserve this landmark by donating what you can to Salemtown Neighbors, designated "re: Fehr School preservation".

If you would like to help immediately email me (by clicking on the "Contact Me" button in the right-hand column of this blog) for contact info or stop by the Salemtown Neighbors booth at the Germantown Street Festival next Saturday and drop off your donation there.

Thanks for your help! I'll provide updates here on the blog as donations come in.


Full disclosure: I am a member of the executive committee of Salemtown Neighbors; however opinions expressed on this blog are entirely mine and are not intended to reflect the views of SNNA members or officers, unless quoted. SNNA has not authorized Enclave to help them fund raise, but considering it worthy, I am lending what help I can to this good cause.

Update: Fehr School preservation

The Salemtown Neighbors Vice President tells me that the association has raised around $670 to pay for Planning Department requirements for the rezoning process to protect the historic Fehr School building at 5th and Garfield. This is great news as CM Erica Gilmore is crafting rezoning legislation. Most of the money was raised from individual donations at SNNA's Oktoberfest booth a couple of weekends ago. But we also received a large matching donation from developer and long-time Fehr advocate Jim Creason along with a generous check from CM Emily Evans who is an enthusiastic supporter of preservation drives. I want to personally thank all who donated, because this cause has been near and dear to my heart since moving to Salemtown.

Last, but not least, SNNA has also collected over 75 signatures on its petition to save Fehr School (jump to the original). This is a large number, given the hyper-local focus and the nearly forgotten history (which we are trying to revive). It will be great to have this petition to show community support during public hearings.

A long time coming and going

MAC's new home come June

After listening to the Director of Metro General Services tell the Mayor during budget hearings last week that the administration of the Metro Action Commission would be moving from their long-time Salemtown home at the historic, but service-delivery-challenged Fehr School building, I grew concerned. My worry was that Metro might be splitting the executives and keeping the services here, which would not solve the problems that MAC and Salemtown have had with dumping utility assistance delivery to needy families in a small school building with inadequate parking.

No major obstacles standing in the way of Fehr school building preservation

The ordinance that would apply a "Historic Landmark Overlay" to the Fehr school building properties in Salemtown and prevent demolition or alteration with few nebulous exceptions was approved by the Metro Council tonight on second reading. There was a public hearing, but no one got up to join the debate for or against. That was the last major hurdle toward preserving a significant landmark in Nashville civil rights history. Once past public hearing, passage of bills on third and final reading is generally a foregone conclusion.

I've been blogging and working on this cause for years. In spite of the bill's limitations, it is a big step in the right direction for our neighborhood, Nashville, and history.

Fehr School update

I received an email from CM Erica Gilmore this morning that her sponsored legislation to rezone Salemtown's historic Fehr School building to preserve it from demolition or drastic exterior alteration is now in the pipeline and moving toward council consideration. First, it has to go to the Metro Historical Zoning Commission before the last Planning Commission meeting in February. Then it has to be approved by the Planning Commission before going before the council for three votes.

Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association raised about $670 to pay for the planning costs of publicizing the proposal and advertising public hearings. We also have a petition just in case we need one. It has been personally gratifying for me to see the community rally around this project.

Getting this legislation passed all commissions and council will be a real boon to our community's sense of history and our quality of life.

Metro Action Throws Wrench into the Salemtown Streetscape Project

MDHA notified Salemtown leaders that staff members of the Metro Action Commission, which occupies the old Fehr School Building in Salemtown, asked them not to install traffic-calming elements that were recommended by the neighborhood's elected advisory committee after three years of study and approved by all of the Metro departments that had to approve them. I served on the committee for the duration and not once did I witness MAC staffers attending open block grant meetings. Nor am I aware of any attempt on MAC's part to contact the committee and express their feedback during the process.

And yet, MDHA has stopped installing curb bump-outs because it has a past history of "deferring" to the wishes of Metro departments. The fact that MAC can undermine the construction process at the 11th hour outside of the civic process to which every other Salemtown stockholder submitted says to me that they believe that they can operate outside of the rules and without consideration of their neighbors. MAC is doing absolutely nothing to build good will in this community, and we need to watchdog them very closely.