My whole life, I had the feeling that Birmingham was specially cursed to die for the sins of the South. Atlanta got a free pass because they were \u201ctoo busy to hate\u201d – not too Christian, not too decent, not too kind, but just didn\u2019t have the time. And for that, Atlanta got the pro sports and the subway and the airport and the Southeastern headquarters of everything. Meanwhile New Orleans got to be New Orleans. Florida turned from a swamp into Miami and Orlando and Disney World and South Beach and god, even Jacksonville got an NFL team. Memphis had the blues and got the NBA and turned into the Oakland of the South, culturally. And then there\u2019s Nashville.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s impossible to dispute that pretty much anything<\/em> about the South that’s actually good or cool or desirable were either created by, perfected by or inextricably bound up in the African-American experience. Barbecue and grits and greens. Gospel music, blues, rock and roll, Dirty South hip-hop. Family reunions and small-town familiarity and half or more of the players that make college football any good. So start with that. Then consider that Nashville didn\u2019t have a population of color on par with other Southern cities, so didn\u2019t have nearly as much Civil Rights drama as other places (not to deny Z. Alexander Looby and Diane Nash and James Lawson and Perry Wallace their rightful place in the constellation of the righteous). But beyond that, Nashville was always a thing apart – Redneck Hollywood, the Protestant Vatican, the origin point for the white South\u2019s Saturday nights and Sunday mornings alike.<\/p>\n When I went back to Birmingham in 2012, or 2013, or 2015, I would look around the coffee shops and tapas restaurants and craft beer bars and Railroad Park and ask myself where are the black people.<\/em> And as a rule, they were there. Maybe not in proportionate numbers, but coming from Silicon Valley, where you can\u2019t remember the last time you saw two<\/em> African-Americans, it was enough to be reassuring. Now before I make my point: I do not believe Nashville has done this deliberately<\/em>, any more than I think Taylor Swift actually tried to cultivate an image as an Aryan princess. But sometimes through no conscious fault of your own you get tangled up in stuff that you weren\u2019t expecting. And I feel like Nashville – with its endless bro-country patriotism and Insta-fueled murals and bach-and-brunch food scene – has accidentally fallen into being Red America\u2019s new Baptist Vegas. All the excitement of a glamorous getaway party town without the hassle and inconvenience of people who aren\u2019t Just Like You.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not purely my imagination. Jefferson County, Alabama (which includes Birmingham and many of its white-flight suburbs) is 42% African-American. Metro Nashville (which is to say, the Nashville-Davisdon County hybrid entity that has existed since 1963) is 28% African-American. Hell, at the time of the merger in 1963, it was under 20%. This is in no way meant to imply deliberate action by Nashville or pin the blame on them. Honest, it isn\u2019t. Nashville felt like home to me on day one in a way that Alabama never did, that DC didn\u2019t, that even NorCal didn\u2019t. But I suspect that Nashville has inadvertently become a desirable destination for a certain demographic in a way that, say, Birmingham is not – and could not be.<\/p>\n And maybe that\u2019s<\/em> the thing that keeps me hanging onto that Barons jersey and buying the new hat and clinging to a 205 Ruben Studdard jersey and a 205 prepaid cellphone number. Because there is a Birmingham in there that I would claim, that I want<\/em> to claim. Fred Shuttlesworth and AG Gaston and Frank Stitt and Lee Bains III and the Glory Fires. The Tired Texan and Rickwood Field and Good People Brewing and Railroad Park. City Stages and Celestial Realm and Dave\u2019s Pub. Five Points and Pepper Place and the Botanical Gardens, McNolia\u2019s and Charlemagne Records and Special Dogs and Legion Field and Grapico and Buffalo Rock. Willie Mays and Jerry Wolak and Carson Fulmer and Jerome Bechard and the GAS Line and the UAB Blazers (and a certain two-time NAIA champion, once upon a time). Dr. James Andrews and the Jimmie Hale Mission and Yeilding Chapel and 16th Street Baptist Church. The Alabama Theater and the McWane Center and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Negro Southern League Museum.<\/p>\n But hovering over all of that is Alabama<\/em>. Bull Connor and George Wallace and Selma and four little girls dead. A state that went 2-1 for Trump and elected a holy-roller publicity hound and likely statutory rapist to the the state Supreme Court twice and almost put him in the US Senate. Paul Finebaum and Harvey Updyke and SEC headquarters. Gardendale First Baptist and Scott Beason and \u201cGo To Church Or The Devil Will Get You.\u201d The Cradle of the Confederacy. The Heart of Dixie. The most crimson of red states.<\/p>\n Austin gets a free pass for being Texas, whether it deserves it or not. Nashville is getting toward a free pass for being Tennessee, for better or worse. I don\u2019t know that Birmingham will ever<\/em> get a pass for being Alabama. I don\u2019t know why it shouldn\u2019t; most everyone who tries to keep it Alabama has already fled to Hoover or Trussville or Gardendale. You can get better local craft beer or electric bike sharing in downtown Birmingham than you can get throughout Santa Clara County in the heart of Silicon Valley. But nobody seriously thought for a hot second that Amazon would ever<\/em> site its second headquarters in Birmingham. Nobody is out there trumpeting Birmingham as the new \u201cIt City.\u201d Even as mild an appellation as \u201cRedneck Portland\u201d is probably more likely to get turned to Nashville or Chattanooga.<\/p>\n And yet…the problem with moving away is you don\u2019t get to see things shift, you only perceive the change as a sudden slam from what was to what is now. And I left for good after 1994 – back only at summers, then only at holidays, then not at all. So even if I was born there, even if I went to school there, even if I was stuck almost entirely in its orbit for twenty-two years – I couldn\u2019t claim a hand in its revival even if I wanted to. My school isn\u2019t there any more. I don\u2019t have any college friends. The relations are tenuous at best. \u00a0Sure, now<\/em> they have stuff just as good as we have here, but I\u2019m already here.<\/em><\/p>\n Maybe the facts on the ground are different. Maybe the city of Birmingham really is going blue-bubble instead of just tiny bits here and there. As long as my mother is alive or Trump is President, though, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever be there long enough to find out for myself. Which is a shame. It would be nice to have a past before 1996 or so. Of which.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My whole life, I had the feeling that Birmingham was specially cursed to die for the sins of the South. Atlanta got a free pass because they were \u201ctoo busy to hate\u201d – not too Christian, not too decent, not too kind, but just didn\u2019t have the time. And for that, Atlanta got the pro … <\/p>\n