The mayor made it official this week. "Fred Douglas Park" will be renamed.
Nearly 80 years ago, the City of Nashville opened a new park in East Nashville. For many years, this park has gone by the name of Fred Douglas Park. Many have wondered who the park was named after, and whether or not it was actually named after abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass.
Thanks to the work of local historians, journalists, and curious Nashvillians, evidence has come to light, including an old Tennessean article, indicating that the park was indeed originally named after Frederick Douglass.
We dont know exactly why or how the name evolved into Fred Douglas Park. It may have been a clerical error, or a more sinister effort by segregationists who wanted to take away a park named after a civil rights hero who fought for the abolition of slavery.
This is really great news.
We have many annoying typos around town that weve codified into things Dickenson Meetinghouse Pike is now Dickerson Pike and the road that leads to the spot where the Clee brothers used to run the ferry, literally, Cleess Ferry Road, at some point became Cleeces Ferry Road because we dont like apostrophes or logic. Give us another hundred years and that road will probably be Cleecesesecessesses Ferry Road. And back in the day people were looser with the spelling of their names, hence why we have Eatons Creek Road and the old Heaton Station, even though theyre named for the same dude, who did, indeed, seem to have an H when he felt like it and not when he didnt.
But the Heaton/Eaton issue does preserve the history of the name. Ive seen plenty of old documents where hes referred to either way. Someone looking into the issue will be led to interesting knowledge about Nashville. The Cleess/Cleeces situation is annoying, but if you say the name of the road out loud, you can hear what happened there. And there are so few Clees in Nashville history that its hard to get led very far astray.
I cant speak to the Dickenson/Dickerson situation, but the Dickensons are an old (or a couple of old) Nashville family/families who inherited Travellers Rest, supposedly evicted the dead Polks from Polk Place, got shot by Andrew Jackson, were well-known horse breeders, birthed lawyers and judges, served in the Hayes Administration, and take up a lot of prime real estate at Mt. Olivet. Itd be nice to have the name right, but in the scheme of things, the Dickensons place in Nashville history is secured. They dont need a road to tell people they existed.
Having the name of Fred Douglas Park wrong, though, does distort Nashville history and it promotes a lie over the truth. Fred Douglas Park is just a park named for a guy no one knows. Frederick Douglass Park a black park in a black part of town tells us a lot about Nashville, even if weve spent eighty years pretending we dont know it. It tells us clearly something that is true in Nashvilles history, but is obscured at the same time Nashvilles black communities faced incredibly persecution and constant devaluation by Nashvilles white power structure, Nashvilles black communities have been seen as valuable to the city and worth, to some small extent, keeping happy.
The tension the city has been in for its whole history is that we need and benefit from the contributions of black Nashvillians we as a city have flourished when black Nashvillians have been able to flourish and yet our systemic racism makes us resentful of that fact and compelled to end or downplay that flourishing.
It is weird, with as racist as Nashville was, that we would name a park for Frederick Douglass. It is more surprising that we would do this than it is that some goober would fuck up the name.
But it tells you that even in the 1930s, some portion of white Nashville had made a calculation that it was worth it to the whole city to let black Nashvillians have a park that honored a man many white Nashvillians didnt care for. Obviously, that calculation didnt weigh so heavily in favor of black Nashvillians that we, say, didnt misspell his name for eighty years.
But if we want a clearer picture of the fits and starts Nashville has made to fully recognize black Nashvillians as Nashvillians, period, there can be no more accurate illustration of that fact than that we named a park for Frederick Douglass as is evidenced by that Tennessean story at the time then spent all this time pretending that we didnt and now, even though we all know the truth. it still takes Metro Parks, the city council, and pressure from the mayor to fix a typo.
Dont get me wrong. Im very glad were doing this.
I just hope we take a minute to dwell on the fact that this was a relatively minor thing and its taken this much effort to get it corrected. How much more effort, then, will be needed to fix the major things?
Link:
Frederick Douglass Park: We're Fixing Our Typo! - Nashville Scene