A Tale Of Two Schools

08/31/20 • 30 min

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At the beginning of the 2019 school year, Principal Ricki Gibbs knew he had a tough job ahead. Warner Elementary in East Nashville had just landed on Tennessee’s list of lowest performing schools. It had lost so many students that it wasn’t even half full. Gibbs was the fourth principal in six years. Yet, he had seemingly unending enthusiasm and a federal magnet grant to boot. He was confident he could turn Warner around.

But what he didn’t anticipate was the neighborhood divide. Warner’s kids are almost all black and most live in poverty, but just about a mile up the road is another public elementary, named Lockeland, whose student body is exactly the opposite. What happens when you have two schools so close together yet so different? And what happens when people in the neighborhood finally start to notice?

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Season 2 Coming Soon

Season 2 of The Promise grapples with some of the most divisive topics in America: public education and race. This is a story about one school trying to stay afloat, a neighborhood divided over race and economics, and a city that’s resisted school desegregation every step of the way. Coming Aug. 31 to a podcasting app near you.

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The Nashville Way

To understand the resegregation of Nashville’s schools, you have to start with understanding desegregation.

In 1954, the famous Brown v. Board decision ruled that segregated schools violated the constitution. But in reality, that decision changed very little in Nashville. Segregation was an architecture, and to pull it apart was a grueling endeavor. White families derailed the process. City officials worked mightily to resist it. And black families sacrificed for it.

In this episode, we’re going back to the early days of this battle for racial equity in the classroom, to the time not that long ago when school desegregation literally blew this city apart.

The Promise is written and produced Meribah Knight. Edited by Emily Siner, with additional editing by Anita Bugg, Tony Gonzalez, Samantha Max, Sergio Martinez-Beltran and Damon Mitchell. Fact-checking and research by Sam Zern. Advising for this season by Savala Nolan Trepczynski and Alex Kotlowitz. Mixing by Jakob Lewis of Great Feeling Studios. The music is by Blue Dot Sessions.