How Black and Latino Tennessee Voices Storytellers Live came to be in Nashville
During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Tennessean began experimenting with how to reach underrepresented communities more deeply, authentically and effectively.
More than a quarter of Nashville's residents are Black and nearly 14% are Latino, but legacy newsrooms have historically not provided consistent, sustained and invested coverage of these communities. Too often a community might be covered in a story or people of color might be disproportionately represented in crime stories as victims or perpetrators. But this omits the stories of so many more residents.
The work began in the spring of 2020 when The Tennessean's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion task force leaders issued this challenge: We will go from telling stories about communities of color to telling stories for, with and by them.
Black Tennessee Voices was born as an effort to seek to elevate the experience of African Americans in opinion pieces and news stories.
Here's why the initiative took on added importance early on
Then, on Memorial Day that year, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minnesota, which led to the summer of racial reckoning.
The work then accelerated beyond our expectations starting with a special digital presentation and print Sunday Insight opinion section dedicated to the views of Black authors including our first Black TN Voices curator LeBron Hill.
That led to a Black Tennessee Voices page in the Insight section and a standalone newsletter, which launched in May 2021. Then, the Latino Tennessee Voices newsletter, curated by me, spun out of that success in September 2021.
The newsletters allow the curator to offer a personal reflection or talk about relevant news and also share a variety of links written by or focused on people of color.
The newsletters received international recognition by winning the Online News Association's Online Journalism Award for Newsletters Portfolio in 2022.
TN Voices and Storytellers merge and elevate community voices
That year, The Tennessean agreed to resuscitate its popular Storytellers Live series, which had been on a pandemic hiatus. The in-person show invites a live audience to hear personal, vulnerable narratives from a series of storytellers from the community.
The Tennessean decided to experiment again by merging the Black and Latino Voices initiatives with Storytellers Live.
In September 2022, the first Black Tennessee Voices Storytellers Live premiered at the National Museum of African American Music in downtown.
The next month, the first Latino Tennessee Voice Storytellers Live took place at Plaza Mariachi, the former grocery store-turned-community center focused on the immigrant community on Nolensville Pike in South Nashville.
NMAAM hosted Black TN Voices again in 2023. Latino TN Voices moved to the Casa Azafrán, north of Plaza Mariachi for Year 2.
The magic of bringing people together to hear authentic, rich stories that were sometimes heartwarming and sometimes heart wrenching is part of The Tennessean's commitment to elevate discourse that brings the public together.
A new Black Tennessee Voices curator and columnist, Andrea Williams, joined The Tennessean in late 2023, and the shows returned in 2024 to new venues.
Meharry Medical College, one of Nashville's four Historically Black Colleges and Universities, hosted Black Tennessee Voices on Sept. 17.
Trevecca Nazarene University, which has shown a commitment to educating Latino students, agreed to host Latino Tennessee Voices storytellers.
Storytellers, staff and sponsors make the live shows possible
The heart of the shows are the storytellers. Thank you to all.
(Black Tennessee Voices) Alyssa Dituro, Ashford Hughes Sr., Kennetha Patterson, Revida Rahman, Marisa Richmond and Keidron Turner; (Latino Tennessee Voices) Fabián Bedne, Judge Ana Escobar, Yenín Echeverría, Diana Pérez and Miguel Vega.
(Black Tennessee Voices) Patricia Bethel, Marshall Crawford, Jill Fitcheard, Timothy Hughes and Shanera Williamson; (Latino Tennessee Voices) Jessie García Knowles, Jonathan Low, Jessica Márquez, Luis Mata and Eva Angelina Romero.
(Black Tennessee Voices) Diarese George, Deranique Jones, Nicole Joseph, Sonya Thomas and Chezare Warren; (Latino Tennessee Voices) Stephanie Amador, Jacob Aparicio, Viridiana De León, Diego Eguiarte and Metro Council Member Sandra Sepúlveda
Sponsors of the current year and past shows: BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, Vanderbilt University's Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx Studies, The Housing Fund and Nuestro Financial.
The Tennessean's news, consumer marketing and sales department worked hand-in-hand to make these happen with buy-in from the very top.
Our goal in 2020 was to create a sustainable, committed and authentic contribution to serving underrepresented communities in the Nashville area.
We are grateful to our readers and audiences who support these initiatives through their subscriptions and by buying tickets to and attending the shows.
At the 2024 Black TN Voices show, audience members asked us to do even more in terms of community engagement throughout the year and we are now working on our plans for 2025.
These efforts do not diminish our commitment to the community as a whole, but they amplify voices that have been historically underrepresented.
One pillar of The Tennessean's DEI task force is that we seek to reflect the community in our coverage and in our newsroom. We remain steadfast in this work.
David Plazas is the opinion and engagement director of The Tennessean. He has worked at The Tennessean since 2014, hosts the Tennessee Voices video podcast and writes two newsletters. Email him at .
