The 80-Year Mystery Around 'Fred Douglas' Park

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NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2017

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

In Nashville, there was a time when the idea of a "Negro park" ruffled feathers. For more than 80 years, there's been confusion about whether a park originally created during segregation and named for a seemingly nonexistent "Fred Douglas" might have actually been intended to honor the great abolitionist and statesman. Reporter Blake Farmer of member station WPLN explores the park's controversial history and how the city finally decided to clarify the park's name.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's good y'all this is Gene Demby and we're doing something a little different, something
0:06.3	short and sweet, a podcast extra of a mystery story from Blake Farmer of NPR member
0:11.7	station WPLN in Nashville.
0:14.0	And the story is about a correction to what may have been a glaring typo that went
0:20.1	uncorrected for 85 years.
0:23.5	But that typo may not have been an accident.
0:25.8	Blake brings us this story from a little park that was thought to honor a famed abolition
0:29.9	as who you might have heard of.
0:32.4	What do you know about Fred Douglas?
0:35.3	I think he's...oh!
0:37.7	I think he's like in a history of book itself.
0:43.0	Middle schooler Janaya Henry twirls her little brother and sisters on the park's merry
0:47.4	go round as I ask her about the name on its sign.
0:51.0	I stopped by Fred Douglas Park on what happened to be the anniversary of his death.
0:55.7	And that's Fred Douglas with 1S, not Fredrick Douglas with 2S's.
1:00.3	A spelling snafu that has had people scratching their heads for decades.
1:04.6	This park is kind of hidden in plain sight near a highway.
1:07.5	You can see the cranes of downtown.
1:09.2	There's just enough room for a couple of soccer fields, a picnic pavilion, and a recently
1:14.0	renovated playground.
1:15.6	I started asking around to see if anyone thought the sign looked a little funny.
1:19.8	It turned into more of an opportunity to share the highlights of who Fredrick Douglas was.
	...

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