North Nashville Looks to Rebuild After Tornado

Rasheeda Fetuga pulled up in front of the hotel where she and a mother of three had agreed to meet.

“This hotel looks a little shabby…I’m going to look at a room,” Fetuga said. Fetuga is a community activist and founder of Gideon’s Army, one of Nashville’s most well-known and respected restorative justice groups. Fetuga is working with a handful of other organizations to help North Nashville rebound from the devastating tornado that touched down two weeks ago.

“She reached out to us and asked if we had a tent,” Fetuga said. “I told her, ‘There is no way in hell you are going to sleep in a tent’. She’s about to meet me at the hotel and I’m going to get a room for her and her babies.”

The years Fetuga spent as an elementary teacher in Nashville taught her the invaluable skill of nurturing, and she’s combined it with a laser focus on building a stronger community. She and her team of Violence Interrupters track hotspots for crime on most days. But, when the tornado hit, they were on the scene ready to help.

“We walked the streets, and we drove where we could and assessed the situation,” Fetuga recalled. “A lot of people needed flashlights because they couldn’t see anything. We went to Walmart and bought up all the flashlights.”

Residents of North Nashville stood in the streets amid powerlines hanging like “spider webs” and took stock of the enormity of the storm which killed 26 and left 300 others injured. Gentrification had already taken a swipe at what remained of North Nashville’s rich cultural history after the government gutted it with its imminent domain authority to seize homes and land for interstates. And, it looked like the tornado may turn out the lights for good.

“Tall and Skinnies” Not Welcome

“The tornado is one of the worst things that could have happened,” Charlane Oliver said. Oliver is the co-founder of The Equity Alliance, an organization focused on building “black political power through the vote.”

Developers recognized North Nashville as the perfect place to build housing for newcomers to the city, moving in as Nashville burnished its image as one of the country’s best and fastest growing cities.

“Nashville has experienced exponential growth and the Black community has not experienced that growth, and we have predatory developers who offer pennies on the dollar to black homeowners,” Oliver explained. “They throw up these ‘tall and skinnies’, cheap condos…and, they’re pushing people out and making these homes no longer affordable for Black people.”

When the tornado blew through and leveled homes and left other homes uninhabitable, Oliver worried about distressed homeowners who may fall prey to developers bent on capitalizing on their vulnerability. The Equity Alliance organized community meetings for homeowners to ask questions. Oliver is adamant about homeowners having the information to make decisions that protect them.

She stated, “Developers are salivating at the chops to make their quick buck, and we’re saying, ‘You’re not going to make that money on the backs of Black North Nashvillians.’”

Oliver and Fetuga are fierce defenders of North Nashville. They have partnered to help residents access resources. The first few days after the tornado were spent cleaning up and directing recovery efforts.

“We had five sites opened where people could donate and pick up things they needed,” Fetuga said.

Oliver’s Equity Alliance, Surj, a white social justice group, along with The New Black Panther Party, The Fruit of Islam, Northwest YMCA, the McGruder Center, Kingdom Café, and Lee Chapel  worked alongside Gideon’s Army to provide resources for North Nashvillians.

The Storm and The Coronavirus

But then, the coronavirus began to spread, and the Centers for Disease Control urged Americans to practice social distancing and recommended that gatherings are kept to 10 people or less. It seemed unfathomable: a devastating tornado one week and two weeks later, a pandemic.

Fetuga remarked, “We are trying to practice social distance. I’m a germaphobe anyway and borderline OCD so I’m taking the same precautions I was taking before. We’ve scaled back our effort, and now we have a door-to-door delivery service. We are not in close spaces together, but the work is still getting done.”

It will take years to rebuild after the tornado. Fetuga and Oliver are in it for the long haul. They know mobilizing their collective energy is critical, citing the lack of media attention devoted to the catastrophic losses in North Nashville.

“We’ve been begging for development. We’ve been begging for a grocery store, but we’re a food desert,” Oliver said. “The investment in our community is not getting to us. We need to be voting some people out who are not supporting our best interests and get the right people in.”

Fetuga agreed.

“We didn’t give anybody the opportunity to let us down this time,” she stated. “It’s really what Gideon’s Army is about. “It’s about our own systems of safety — an extension of the services and the values we already provide and hold.”

And, locating a place to live for a tornado-displaced mother and her children is part of a day’s work.

For more information on tornado assistance, visit www.rebuildnorthnashville.com.