Uncovering Nashville’s African-American Heritage: The Bass Street Community Archaeology Project

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Since 2017, the Bass Street Community Archaeology Project has conducted excavations at the site of one of the earliest African American neighborhoods in Reconstruction era Nashville. The Bass Street Community was located at the site of Fort Negley, a Civil War era Union fort. Black Nashvillians- enslaved, formerly enslaved, self-emancipated, and free- were conscripted into service by the Union to construct the fort, forming refugee and labor camps that developed into permanent neighborhoods following Emancipation in 1865.

The Bass Street neighborhood was a thriving yet marginalized community until the 1960s when residents were displaced for the construction of the interstate system. In this presentation we will discuss how residents of the Bass Street Community self-reconstructed and maintained their individual and collective identities within the Jim Crow South through the Civil Rights Era. We will also be discussing the difficulties and implications of conducting archaeological research on a politically contentious topic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Pre-Recorded Video Presentation Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow