Nashville has a rich indigenous history that dates back to the last ice age, as well as a small but vibrant Native American community that is working to gain recognition and resources in Middle Tennessee. The first people to inhabit the area that is now modern Nashville were Native Americans who arrived here about 14,000 years ago. During the Mississippian period they built farms, villages and even cities – all decades before contact with European settlers. In this episode, we address a listener...
Apr 07, 2022•49 min
It’s tax time — one of our only sure things in life. It’s amazing we all make it through each year since the process often seems needlessly complicated. On this first round of a new segment we're calling Budget Crunch, we’ll invite a few panelists to answer some of your questions this filing season. Then, we'll focus on a Curious Nashville question about why Bell Road is so difficult to navigate around Interstate 24's Exit 59. There's a hopeful solution at a nearby exit that may make you dizzy. ...
Apr 06, 2022•51 min
Note: This episode originally aired on March 24, but the show was unexpectedly interrupted by a press conference with President Joe Biden about the war in Ukraine. We are re-airing this so listeners can hear the full episode. Everyone wants to live in a safe community. The big question is, what is the best way to prevent violence? The 2020 murder of George Floyd created new urgency across the country to find alternatives to policing. Nashville was no exception. Over the past few years, one local...
Apr 05, 2022•50 min
Nashville is developing a new master plan for Fort Negley, one of the city’s most significant and unique historical landmarks. 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 fo...
Apr 04, 2022•51 min
Thursday marked the anniversary of the day the Nashville Predators sold enough season tickets to qualify for a National Hockey League franchise in 1998. It was a pretty formative moment for our city. Fast forward to today, and the Preds are in the hunt for a playoff spot. We’ll kick off today’s show with a local hockey reporter who's going to fill us in on how this season has gone, and what we have to look forward to in the next couple weeks. Then, we’ll go back in time. We're joined by a panel ...
Apr 01, 2022•50 min
Author and New York Times columnist Margaret Renkl joins the show to share her joy of spring and talk over the polarization that she sees hindering our progress. She tells host Khalil Ekulona "when the macrocosm is hard to bear, focusing in on the microcosm usually helps." "I do still take an immense amount of pleasure and hope in the bluebirds building a nest in the nest box in my yard, or for the spring beauties poking up through the leaves left over from last fall," she says. "It's hard not t...
Mar 31, 2022•40 min
After more than a decade in operation, The Little Pantry That Could had its last shopping day on Saturday – leaving a hole in the city. It was more than a free grocery store. Founder/Director Stacy Downey built a family and provided outreach for housing, identification and medical care, in addition to groceries. Where will that leave folks in North Nashville who depended on the community? We talk to a representative and a beneficiary of The Little Pantry That Could as well as people who manage o...
Mar 30, 2022•45 min
The deadline to register for upcoming local elections is fast approaching — Monday, April 4 to be exact. Today’s episode is all about exercising the franchise, which a large number of Nashvillians choose not to do. Two years ago, 90,342 ballots were cast in the general election for mayor. That’s only about 21 percent of registered voters. Put another way, Mayor John Cooper was elected in 2019 with 62,440 votes — meaning that less than 10 percent of residents voted for their city’s leader. We’re ...
Mar 29, 2022•45 min
Nashville is best known for music, and rightly so, but below the surface there is a rich visual arts scene. Wedgwood-Houston and Buchanan have emerged as arts districts unto themselves, while exhibits also continue in storied spaces like the Van Vechten Gallery at Fisk University. Nashville's rapid growth over the past few years has attracted a wave of new homebuyers from cities with established art markets like Los Angeles and New York City. However, the increasingly competitive housing market ...
Mar 28, 2022•44 min
It's been a crazy two years. We all know that. But, think about this: high schoolers who are about to graduate have been in the pandemic since their sophomore year. As students head back to school after spring break, we check in on how they’re holding up this far into the pandemic. First, WPLN's Damon Mitchell talks new tech jobs, and how to get ready for them. Guests : Damon Mitchell, WPLN Enterprise Reporter Jama Mohamed, Technical Resident at HCA Sandra Williams , Mother Anna Bernstein , LMSW...
Mar 25, 2022•45 min
Everyone wants to live in a safe community. The big question is, what is the best way to prevent violence? The 2020 murder of George Floyd created new urgency across the country to find alternatives to policing. Nashville was no exception. Over the past few years, one local anti-violence group, Gideon’s Army, has been trying out one approach called violence interruption. The approach treats violence like an infectious disease and takes a community-based approach to public safety. On today’s epis...
Mar 24, 2022•48 min
Newroz (also spelled Nowruz) is the start of the Persian New Year and a celebration of spring that is held throughout the Middle East. It's also celebrated in Middle Tennessee because Nashville is home to the largest Kurdish population in the United States. Today's guests share what Newroz means to them and their cultural identity as either Kurds or Afghans living in the U.S. Also in this episode, WPLN healthcare reporter Blake Farmer talks about why hospitals are closing in Middle Tennessee. Gu...
Mar 21, 2022•51 min
Nashville has changed a lot over the past handful of decades – and our city’s LGBTQ+ scene is no exception. The first gay bars popped up after World War II, and the number of LGBTQ+ establishments grew from there, peaking in the 1980s and 1990s with more than 20. None of them are still around today. In recent years, increasing social acceptance has lead to the creation of new queer spaces in Nashville, like kickball leagues and roving dance parties, and has sparked conversations about the purpos...
Mar 18, 2022•51 min
After a brief intermission, Curious Nashville returns to the airwaves to answer listener questions about Middle Tennessee. The show reexamines history, explains what is — and isn’t — working in local government, and finds the story behind the oddball landmarks on the side of the road. WPLN Special Projects Editor Tony Gonzalez joins This Is Nashville host Khalil Ekulona to share some of his favorite stories from past Curious Nashville episodes and gives a glimpse into what's being investigated n...
Mar 17, 2022•51 min
Nashville is locked in a contract dispute with Red River Waste Solutions, the private company the city hired for trash and recycling pickup . Things got so bad that the city stopped picking up recyclables altogether late last year. Recycling collection has started up again, but Red River is still in bankruptcy and the city’s garbage is piling up. All this refuse raises questions. Where does our junk go? Are we running out of space to dump it ? Garbage collection on the one hand, and landfill spa...
Mar 16, 2022•51 min
In February, the Metro Nashville Council passed a controversial piece of legislation that would allow law enforcement to use license plate readers as part of a six month pilot program . Some believe that this new technology will help address crime in our city. But others have serious concerns that it poses a threat to privacy and could disproportionately target people of color. To learn more about about this debate, we hear from community members, a research scientist, a co-sponsor of the legisl...
Mar 15, 2022•51 min
Scouring the racks at a secondhand store is a time-honored way to score stylish clothes on the cheap in Middle Tennessee. But if you’re searching for these kinds of bargains, at a thrift store, good luck — pretty much anything that’s worth anything is getting snapped up and sold under a different category: vintage. Sometimes the markup can be eye-popping so high-quality clothes or last season's designer duds are out of reach for thrifters. The guests discuss the differences between vintage and t...
Mar 14, 2022•51 min
Middle Tennessee experienced a handful of sunny days this week, but this weekend, there's the possibility of snow. The temperature drop is a mild inconvenience for most residents, but it can be deadly for those who are unhoused. In this episode, you'll hear from people who have experienced harsh weather when they didn't have stable housing and take a trip to one of Nashville's cold weather shelter. Also in the show, WPLN News reporter Paige Pfleger discusses her recent coverage of the Southern P...
Mar 11, 2022•50 min
In January Tennessee made national news when the Pulitzer Prize winning Holocaust memoir Maus was banned by the McMinn County school board . This was just the beginning of a much larger debate about books, obscenity and "age-appropriateness" that has been raging across the state. In this episode, host Khalil Ekulona sits down with WPLN News political reporter Blaise Gainey to learn more about three recent bills that would ban or limit books in schools.Then we hear from librarians, authors, paren...
Mar 10, 2022•51 min
Sixty years ago, North Nashville was a thriving cultural oasis. There were taverns and gambling joints, restaurants and ice cream parlors, boarding houses and nightclubs that drew the likes of Etta James and Jimi Hendrix. Construction of Interstate 40 through North Nashville in the 1970s split the historically Black neighborhood in two, severed community ties and brought noise and pollution. Much of the Black middle class that had sustained North Nashville moved away, leading to years of neglect...
Mar 09, 2022•48 min
As Nashville continues its rapid growth, residents with disabilities say they're being left behind. While new buildings are popping up all around Middle Tennessee, residents who rely on wheelchairs, canes, guide dogs and other mobility aids are still fighting for reliable public transportation and safe sidewalks in their neighborhoods. In this episode, we hear what it's like to navigate Nashville when you have a disability, and get some perspective from people who are advocating for improved ser...
Mar 08, 2022•51 min
After the first cases of COVID-19 were reported in Tennessee in March 2020, nurses were often lauded as healthcare heroes. Two years later, nurses are not only feeling the weight of the pandemic, they are also dealing with staffing shortages, patients who refuse to get vaccinated, and the ongoing loss of human life. An increasing number of nurses are considering becoming travel nurses to make more money or leave the healthcare industry altogether for less stressful jobs. Host Khalil Ekulona talk...
Mar 07, 2022•51 min
The honky-tonks on Lower Broadway contribute to Nashville's economy and its reputation as a destination party city. While "NashVegas" has become a playground for bachelorette parties, locals have pushed back — complaining about unruly tourists and under-regulated party vehicles . Things got so out of hand that the word "transportainment" made its first appearance in The New York Times last year. In this episode, host Khalil Ekulona talks to some of the people who make Nashville's nightlife tick,...
Mar 04, 2022•51 min
It has been two years since tornadoes touched down in Middle Tennessee on March 3, 2020. The tornadoes killed 25 people , destroyed more than 1,600 buildings — including more than 400 homes — and damaged some 2,700 others stretching from Benton County, through downtown and East Nashville, and into Cookeville. This episode examines what has changed since the deadly storms. Host Khalil Ekulona speaks to residents who were displaced by the storms about how their lives were changed that night. Later...
Mar 03, 2022•51 min
Tennessee’s school funding formula hasn’t been meaningfully changed in the last 30 years, but in late February Governor Bill Lee and Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn released a proposal that will focus funding on students. The new Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement promises more dollars to every district. In the first part of the show, WPLN education reporter Juliana Kim explains the differences between the current and proposed funding formulas, and what it will mean for local schoo...
Mar 02, 2022•50 min
Welcome to the first episode of This Is Nashville . Today the show explores how the region's explosive growth has led to a sense of disconnect, between the old Nashville and the new. Host Khalil Ekulona talks with guests who are shaping the new Nashville and asks them what Music City is gaining and losing with all of these rapid changes. Before we dive into the conversation, Executive Producer Andrea Tudhope joins Khalil in the studio to talk about what listeners can expect every day from This I...
Mar 01, 2022•50 min
Each weekday, we're inviting real conversations, real dialog — in a brand new daily news show.
Feb 28, 2022•30 sec
