Nashville's local news and NPR station

The Promise

with host and reporter Meribah Knight

Season 1, Part 1: A Change Is Gonna Come

Joe Buglewicz WPLN News
Vernell McHenry, center, is looking forward to the Cayce Homes' redevelopment, but she worries she may lose her social life in the process.
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At 61 years old, Vernell McHenry is like the grandmother of her corner of James Cayce. Where she’s lived for more than 17 years, greeting the neighborhood from a metal folding beach chair on her stoop. But Cayce is about the be transformed, torn down and rebuilt as mixed income apartments. And now, Vernell has a decision to make. Does she stay in her dilapidated and aging apartment where her friends and a gaggle of smiling kids live next door? Or does she go down the hill to a brand new building, potentially losing her social life and sense of home in the process?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Music Credits
Our theme music is by The Insider, additional music by Fleslit and Willbe, all found through the Free Music Archive. The archival audio, found through YouTube, is from the United States Housing Agency.

Production Credits
Writing and reporting: Meribah Knight
Editing: Blake Farmer, Anita Bugg. With additional help from Tony Gonzalez, Emily Siner, Chas Sisk and Julieta Martinelli
Sound Design: Tony Gonzalez
Fact Checking: Steve Cavendish

Filed Under: Race & Equity, The Promise

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Meribah Knight, Senior Reporter/Producer of Special Projects

Meribah Knight is a senior reporter and producer at Nashville Public Radio. She’s the host and creator of the Peabody Award-winning podcast, The Promise as well as Serial’s recent podcast The Kids of Rutherford County.

Her reporting on race and inequality in public schools prompted a wholesale shift in enrollment and attitudes toward school choice in one Nashville neighborhood. And her reporting on the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tenn., led to the retirement of its juvenile judge and new oversight of its juvenile detention center.

Knight has received numerous national awards for her reporting, including the George Foster Peabody Award and the George Polk Award. Knight was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the Goldsmith Award, and twice a finalist for a National Magazine Award. Knight received her master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

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