Small World, Big Love with Faith Adiele: A roadtrip to Knoxville reveals the importance of holding onto place
When my girl Deesha, author of the acclaimed story collection The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, asked if I wanted to roadtrip with her to Knoxville, I hopped in the front seat like her elderly pug Fudgie wished she still could. Ever since I had to cancel my appearance at this year’s TravelCon in Memphis, which would have been my first trip to the state, I’ve had Tennessee on my mind. I’d heard about Nashville’s charms (who hasn’t?) and read up on Memphis when I thought I’d be teaching a travel writing workshop there, but I knew nothing about Knoxville. Which made our journey into Black Knoxville’s history and future all the more rewarding.
Our destination was The Bottom, a non-profit, multi-use community center celebrating its grand anniversary. Historically, the segregated urban neighborhoods where Black folks lived were called The Bottom, a reference to the low value of the land. This center takes its name from the Black neighborhood in East Knoxville that was demolished in the 1950s under the guise of urban renewal and is the brainchild of sociologist Enkeshi El-Amin, who’d relocated to Knoxville to do graduate work. Her research on how Black communities relate to and transform place revealed deep feelings of displacement and loss. “I wasn’t looking for an urban renewal story,” she told me. But it was clear that no one had documented or archived the destruction of an entire neighborhood, and that the historical obstacles to claiming space still existed.
El-Amin and a mentor designed an oral history project. They commissioned a street trolley to take community elders on a tour of every street of the original Bottom in order to share stories and memories. “Folks came out,” she marveled, including the last living elementary school teacher from Knoxville’s first Black public school, age 96, with people following the packed trolley in their own cars. The resulting “Streets & Feets: A Living Exhibit of the Bottom” is a series of placards — one per street — capturing Black life through maps, photographs and oral testimony. Many include lists of addresses destroyed and families displaced.
In 2019, dissertation complete, El-Amin started teaching local kids to sew. What was meant to be “a fun little project” developed into the wildly popular Sew It Sell It program, in which youth ages 12 to 16 receive basic sewing instruction and are provided with the supplies, equipment and business training to start their own business. Before she knew it, she and Ty Murray, who serves as Director of Art and Communications, were spearheading an organization to reclaim Black space, build community, celebrate culture and engage Black creativity.
When the city began preparations to build a baseball stadium in the exact spot where the Black community had been, advisors warned them to secure a building. The team found a bungalow in East Knoxville and, in record time, raised the funds to buy it. In October 2021, The Bottom opened its doors. Inside is an independent bookstore, tearoom, podcast studio, research room and creative art workshop. The original collection of forty donated books has grown into a homey, sun-filled bookshop offering reading nooks for adults and children, must-have merch and well-curated gift packages and subscriptions. In addition to Sew It Sell It, the center’s programming includes Black creatives meet-ups, podcast training, workshops in Appalachian ceramic craft culture, microbusiness incubators, and community fellowships with University of Tennessee scholars working on community identified projects.
As Deesha took the stage as the guest of honor, I glanced around at the yard ringed with Feets & Streets placards and filled with musicians, kids making crafts and selling hand-sewn bags, vendors offering food and wares. I could feel the intersection of past and future. Kalil White, the new Executive Director, agreed. “This place is magical. I want to see The Bottoms all across Tennessee. All across the country.”
This story was originally published October 17, 2022 at 9:00 AM.