A Nashville many don't know: Soul of America tour shines a light on Music City's Black history

The history teacher heard his students disrespecting each other, and he was inspired.

They were using the names of the housing projects where they lived as derogatory terms. "Hale," they would say with derision. "J.C. Napier," they said to make another kid sad.

Fred Whitley Jr., the Nashville history teacher, knew those names. John Henry Hale was a prominent Black surgeon and philanthropist in the 1930s and '40s. J.C. Napier served as the register of the Treasury and his signature appeared on U.S. currency (one of only five African Americans to hold that distinction).

In 2017, Whitley founded the Soul of America Tour, a bus excursion through Nashville that continually catches people by surprise. The tour has 40 designated places of interest, including the city's historically black colleges and universities (Fisk, Meharry and Tennessee State), places where enslaved people were sold, places where Motown records were pressed and many spots of civil rights significance.

"If we don't tell our story, no one will," said Whitley, 50.

The tour costs $35, and he gives each person a coin pronouncing them "Soul Certified." The tours are held every other weekend, and tickets are available at SoulofAmericaTours.com.

"I want everyone to be Soul Certified," Whitley said.

He said tours like his are especially important because he feels Black history has become the target of politicians.

"We're seeing attacks on our story," Whitley said. "The Soul of America Tour is for everybody. Preserving and telling the story of the fabric of America is important."

Whitley is the conductor, and he plays music and leads people on the bus in games like "hip hop charades." The average tourgoer is a 30-to-65 year-old woman.

"I get the whole bus singing," he said.

'I didn't know my own city'

Last summer, LaWanda Plowden of Nashville organized a tour during her family reunion.

"They're still talking about it," Plowden, 55, said. "We had old people and young people, and they all enjoyed it."

Plowden said the tour caught her by surprise.

"I learned about a Nashville I didn't know," she said. "I didn't know my own city."

She said she was stunned to find out that record executives like Barry Gordy couldn't stay in hotels when he came to Nashville for business. So the United Record Pressing plant, where vinyl records were made, had secret upstairs rooms for Black executives.

"I didn't know those places existed," Plowden said.

Son of a preacher man

Whitley said he was raised with the spirit of North Nashville. His father, Fred Sr., was a minister at the Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and owned the Pine Cove Motel.

The motel allowed Black guests when others wouldn't.

Whitley Jr. got a masters degree in educational leadership at Tennessee State and became a teacher.

He said he was a natural at "edu-tainment." He would play songs in class and tried to make education fun. It was in the mid-2010s that he heard students "trying to demean each other" using famous Black names.

"Rather than getting upset, I wanted to do my little small part," he said.

Around the same time, Whitley was working as the weekend supervisor at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. He said he saw buses coming in to hear one version of history.

He wanted to tell the full version.

"I saw Nashville had a need to hear our story," he said. "I'm good at telling stories and playing songs. I wanted to be a practicing historian."

Tidbits about Barry Gordy, Little Richard, Dolly Parton

On his tour, when he tells the story of Gordy staying upstairs at United Record Pressing, he plays "ABC" by the Jackson 5. When the bus passes the Hilton Hotel where Little Richard stayed, he plays "Tutti Frutti."

He bought the rights to play a long list of songs, including "Old Town Road," "Respect" and "I Will Always Love You."

Whitley said the bus gets rocking when everyone is belting out the Whitney Houston version of "I Will Always Love You" while rolling down Lower Broadway and learning that Dolly Parton wrote the song.

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He said the most emotional part of the tour is when the bus passes the McKissack Building, which was built by Black architects Moses and Calvin McKissack. Their building sits across the street from what was once a marketplace where enslaved people were sold.

He said the most popular photo spot on the tour is the gold Olympian statue that sits in front of Tennessee State.

Whitley said he has two goals for the future.

First, he wants to buy his own bus. Currently, he rents.

And someday, he wants the Soul of America Tour to be available in every major U.S. city.

"That's the dream," he said.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Teacher's Black history tour showcases a Nashville many don't know