Fort Negley Added to UNESCO Slave Route Project

Nashville's historic Fort Negley will be designated as a "Site of Memory" by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as part of its Slave Route Project.

A press conference and "Lunch & Learn" event is scheduled for Tuesday, May 21, at the Civil War-era fort south of downtown, with the formal announcement at 10:30 a.m.

The nomination was prepared by Dr. Angela Sutton — who spoke to the Scene for our recent story about Vanderbilt's Fort Negley Descendents Project — and the Nashville chapter of the NAACP and the Friends of Fort Negley Park.

“Fort Negley was the ideal candidate for nomination because it touches on every aspect of enslavement that the United States shares with other slave societies,” Sutton said in a press release. “Yet it was also a site that drew free skilled laborers of African descent looking for work, and a site where the United States Colored Troops defended the Union and fought for a better future for their descendants.”

Read more: https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/21069257/fort-negley-added-to-unesco-slave-route-project