What was built
- Established or development period
- 1870s–1900s
- Peak period
- 1940s–1960
- Who built the community
- Black North Nashville residents anchored by Fisk University, Tennessee State University and Meharry Medical College.
- Black population
- A dense Black residential and student population in North Nashville.
- Businesses
- More than 100 Black-owned businesses along the corridor.
- Financial institutions
- Not yet documented
- Churches
- Multiple historic Black congregations.
- Schools
- Fisk University, Tennessee State University and Meharry Medical College.
- Hospitals
- Hubbard Hospital at Meharry.
- Newspapers
- Not yet documented
- Entertainment & cultural institutions
- The Del Morocco, Club Baron and a rhythm-and-blues circuit where Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard performed.
- Other community institutions
- Not yet documented
- Black land & property ownership
- Black home and commercial ownership across North Nashville.
- Economic significance
- The business corridor linking three historically Black colleges and universities.
What happened
- What happened?
- Construction of Interstate 40 through North Nashville in the 1960s destroyed a large portion of Jefferson Street and severed the corridor, despite a federal lawsuit by Black residents. Roughly 80 percent of the district's businesses were lost.
- Trigger or precipitating event
- The routing of Interstate 40 through North Nashville after an earlier alignment was changed.
- Underlying historical context
- Highway routing that split Black neighborhoods and campuses; the residents' suit, Nashville I-40 Steering Committee v. Ellington, failed in federal court in 1967.
- Method of destruction / displacement
- Highway · Eminent Domain · Urban Renewal
- Date or period of destruction
- 1967–1970
- Confirmed / documented deaths
- Not yet documented
- Estimated deaths
- Not yet documented
- People displaced
- Roughly 620 homes, 27 apartment buildings and dozens of businesses in the right-of-way (figures from project and court records).
- Homes destroyed
- Not yet documented
- Businesses destroyed
- About 80 percent of the district's Black-owned businesses closed within a decade.
- Acres or property lost
- Not yet documented
Afterward
- What happened to the land?
- Interstate 40 right-of-way bisecting the neighborhood.
- Was compensation paid?
- Condemnation payments for takings; business and community losses uncompensated.
- Was the community rebuilt?
- Partially
- What was rebuilt?
- Not yet documented
- Destroyed or displaced again?
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement date
- Not yet documented
- Second displacement cause
- Not yet documented
- What exists there today?
- The Jefferson Street Sound Museum, ongoing corridor revitalization and gentrification pressure in North Nashville.
- Descendant, reparation & restoration efforts
- Jefferson Street United Merchants Partnership and heritage-corridor planning.
- Historical significance
- One of the best-documented cases of Black residents suing to stop a highway and losing.
Sources
- Source lookupFind
Nashville I-40 Steering Committee v. Ellington, 387 F.2d 179 (6th Cir. 1967)
- Source lookupFind
Nashville Public Library, Special Collections
- Primary recordFind
Tennessee State Library and Archives
- Source lookupFind
Tennessee Department of Transportation, I-40 project records
"Find" opens a focused search for legacy references that do not have a stable link; "Open" goes directly to the source.
Last verified: 2026-09-20. This is a living historical collection. Additional communities and documentation will be added as research and verification continue.