Nashville is developing a new master plan for Fort Negley, one of the city’s most significant and unique historical landmarks.

George Barnard Wikimedia Commons

Soldiers at their stations in Fort Negley in 1864.

The fort was built during the Civil War by conscripted free Black men and women for the Union Army. The U.S. Colored Troops who defended Fort Negley during the war remained and settled Nashville’s first post-Emancipation Black neighborhood at the base of the hill. The Bass Street neighborhood was a thriving area until it was destroyed in the 1950s and ’60s to make way for Interstate 65.

Now, former Bass Street residents and their descendants are fighting to reclaim the narrative of the neighborhood as the city decides what to do with the space.

In this excerpt, we learn the story of Fort Negley and Bass Street and hear from some in the community fighting to preserve its legacy.