VOICES OF RESILIENCE
A Nashville Environmental Justice Initiative Story Archive
A collaboration of the Nashville Environmental Justice Initiative, Urban Green Lab and Tennessee State University are creating a unique archive of oral histories to foster active community listening and address the growing issues brought by a shifting climate.
The archive features the voices of some Nashville community members experiencing climate change first, worst, and longest. Each person shares their story, allowing us to document this moment in Nashville's history in their voice and perspective.
Listen to the Archive
Hear from Nella “Ms. Pearl” Frierson
Nashvillian in Community Gardening
"I have never experienced this…ever. It’s like there used to be a shield where the sun gets through, but now…you feel like your blood is boiling. We have to be realistic; it’s too hot. The same sun, the same time or year, it’s threatening. [Being outside] it used to be joyful, but now it's... uncomfortable. Most little children do not be outside…ever.”
Climate Connection
As cities continue to grow, so does the intensity of the heat trapped within them. Concrete buildings, asphalt roads, and limited green space contribute to what's known as the urban heat island effect, where urban areas experience higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas.
Urban heat doesn't just make Nashville summers uncomfortable—it can have serious, long-term consequences, particularly for vulnerable populations who are already facing multiple layers of inequality. Many of the city’s most vulnerable residents live in areas close to heavy industry, busy highways, and overdeveloped spaces—places where the heat is often felt more intensely. Without enough green spaces or cooling resources like cooling shelters, and with pollution levels higher in these areas, the health risks are much greater, too. Designing or revitalizing cities with greenspace like Brooklyn Heights Community is the most effective, long-term solution to combating the urban heat island effect.
This is a reality that Ms. Pearl knows all too well. The sweltering heat she describes is a growing struggle in her North Nashville neighborhood, and unfortunately, it’s not an isolated experience. As Nashville continues to expand, the effects of extreme heat on human health, well-being, and the environment are becoming even more urgent. For Nashville's marginalized communities, the rising temperatures aren't just an inconvenience—they're a real public health concern that demands our attention.
Additional Information
Hear from Vicky Batcher
Nashvillian in transitional housing
"I think it's just going to come to a time when we won’t be able to predict the weather anymore. It seems to be colder longer and hotter quicker. You don’t have that week to prepare. Being homeless, you had a week to prepare… We need to be able to prepare…but now…There is no slow progress into the seasons. We don’t have time to prepare. Pretty soon, we’re not going to have a spring or autumn."
Climate Connection
Unhoused Nashvillians like Vicky, who live among the elements, are more attuned than most to the shifting climate. This community experiences these changes first, worst, and longest. Often, we associate climate changes with warmer temperatures but the outcomes of shifting climate are more varied and far-reaching.
Vicky’s experiences indicate a significant departure from climate patterns as we know them in Middle Tennessee. As she correctly predicts, our seasons are evolving into something manifestly new. Our ability to read these dramatic seasonal shifts directly impacts those living outdoors. These rapid pivots in our climate also test our city’s capacity to prepare for more dire consequences.
For folks like Vicky, we have moved away from communities that work in concert with the outdoor world rather than in spite of it. A better Nashville will require a return to a whole environmental approach to our city’s design and development.
Additional Information
Hear from Frederick Cawthon
Nashvillian in sustainable agribusiness
“This is not normal. And you can layer over and look at the data where greenhouse gas emissions, when they're increasing, and then layer over, okay, when do we start seeing all these tornadoes and everything is just expanded, where the seasons are expanding. And then even if you look at the degree days and how we keep rising, we're getting hotter and hotter. We're doing that.”
Climate Connection
Frederick’s business focuses on the agricultural, medicinal, and industrial applications of hemp. Frederick sees this crop as an intersecting opportunity for commerce and agriculture – the very words on the state seal. He envisions a new type of agribusiness, one that reimagines a system where agriculture and commerce aren’t in conflict, where the scales of earth’s resources, people, and prosperity find equilibrium, and where equity and access are expected. His mother’s cancer trials led Frederick to pose introspective questions about the tension we often feel between natural and human systems. It is a tension of our own making, one that Frederick believes can be relieved through indigenous wisdom, which suggests a return to a more equitable balance between people and planet.
Frederick’s story connects the dots between our impact on the planet, the negative health, environmental, and economic outcomes impacting loved ones, and the perceptible shift towards more sustainable solutions in business and beyond. He’s stumbled on the form of true resiliency, something those who seek true environmental justice strive towards.
Additional Information
Partner Spotlight
The Nashville Environmental Justice Initiative (NEJI) is a partnership between Urban Green Lab (UGL) and Tennessee State University (TSU). TSU and their Geographic Information Sciences Laboratory (GIS) has historically been a champion for climate and environmental justice.
Since the department's founding in 2000 by Dr. David A. Padgett, GIS has provided technical assistance to environmental justice and community-based organization (CBO) stakeholders in support of a number of community-based participatory research (CBPR) activities, including:
- Applications of EJ SCREEN and ArcGIS Online in support of CBO community air quality monitoring project in the Pleasantville Community in Houston, Texas.
- Stakeholder training in geoscience and cartography in support of strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of landfills upon human health in the Wedgewood Community in Pensacola, Florida.
- Real estate data collection and analysis in support of CBO efforts to develop heritage tourism and preserve critical historical resources in the Africatown Community in Mobile, Alabama.
- Community-based participatory asset mapping and hydrological data analysis in support of community legal actions versus a proposed inland port facility that threatens the quality of life in the historic Turkey Creek community in Gulfport, Mississippi.
- Geographic information systems (GIS) training in support of a community-based flood mitigation program in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.
To learn more about the Oral History Archive, contact Stephanie Roach at stephanie@urbangreenlab.org.