North Nashville elementary school weaves history, art into its fabric
There were a few wrinkled noses and an "Ew!" or two as a group of second graders learned what the chamber pot in Dali Atchley's hands was used for 200 years ago. That reaction only grew when they learned that children were often tasked with cleaning them out each morning.
Atchley, the outreach coordinator at the Tennessee State Museum, was on campus at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School in North Nashville on Friday to kick off a special exhibit. The school is one of two with miniature museums in the Metro Nashville Public Schools district. The state museum exhibit includes things like pottery, clothing, quilts and tools from 18th century Tennessee. The Frist Art Museum, Vanderbilt University, Fisk University, Tennessee State University and the North Nashville Consortium also partner with the school.
"Do you know anyone who's 200 years old?" Atchley asked the kids.
One of them pointed at Robert Churchwell Jr. in the back of the room, eliciting big smiles and laughs from the group. Churchwell, the son of the school's namesake, couldn't stop laughing about it all morning.
"A 200-year-old man walks down the stairs," Churchwell, who's actually 70, quipped from the stairwell overlooking a mural in the school library that depicts his father's life.
Robert Churchwell Sr. became the first Black journalist employed at a white-owned metropolitan newspaper in the South when he took a job at the Nashville Banner in 1950. He faced intense racism as he pioneered his career. It took five years before he was even given his own desk in the newsroom, but by the time he retired decades later, he'd interviewed the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Muhammad Ali, and earned a slew of awards and honors. He'd also watched his five children grow up and flourish.
The enormous mural opposite the floor-to-ceiling windows in the school's library reads "The Jackie Robinson of Journalism."
Churchwell Jr. began as a band teacher in MNPS and now oversees family engagement for the elementary school and curates its museum. He said his dad would be delighted to know the school, originally named after a member of the Confederate Navy, was renamed for him in 2009, just a year after his death.
He also knows his dad, who reported on education and was passionate about the arts, history and kids, would be proud to see the museum woven into the fabric of the school. Everything from music and art classes to physical education have elements of history in them, according to the school's principal, Kenneth Bonner Jr. The school's third and fourth graders get the chance to learn how to curate museum exhibits.
Four times a year, the school hosts museum nights, which are led by the students and showcase their work.
"Our hallways become these immersive museum experiences," Bonner said. "The students ... (take) the community through the different activities and displays."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: The rich history behind Nashville's Robert Churchwell elementary
