Friends, Do you know that while I live less than one mile from Ft. Negley I became aware of the desecration of our city's parkland through twitter? Yes! A bird. A twitter, tweeting, bird told me. I only joined twitter in late 2015.. I'm usually late to adopt! While I graduated from Stanford University at the height of the dot.com bubble, I was late to google, and Facebook, and twitter. I met my husband, an army doctor, before there was a tinder. Thank goodness, I probably would have forgotten my password! But what is amazing? That Twitter ignited in me the concern to start this petition - to know, reading the news, that something WAS NOT RIGHT - when the TNTribune & Tennessean Editorial Board Writers BOTH demand accountability & transparency - you know something is WRONG. And what is more remarkable? That it was Twitter that helped a descendant learn about her OWN connection to Ft. Negley! A BGA graduate, a Vanderbilt graduate, a Meharry College of Medicine Graduate! Wow. It gives me chills. It makes me realize why the birds, those amazing free animals for whom my great-grandfather had the foresight to create the Tn Ornithological Society so many years ago (and for his efforts why the HIGEST point @ Radnor Lake is named for him!) .. why people say "the Canary in the Coal Mine" when they are wondering what and how to predict the future....the birds, they know, they sing, they help SHOW US THE WAY. The birds - be they twitter - or someone else - brought us together. I am thankful for that, for you, for you signatures, for your enduring support. For you belief in the beautiful. For your belief in something beyond a political favor. For your belief in us. Do not stop sharing or singing or wondering. Read Dr. Fleming's words. If you are on twitter - follow me @alicerolli1 and follow the 2,771 @fortnegley ! In flight, for our future, for our great-grandchildren, Alice Ganier Rolli District 17 2771 African Americans built Fort Negley…and 2 of them were my ancestors Eleanor Fleming, PhD, DDS, MPH In 1996, I gave the salutatory address for the last class at Battle Ground Academy to graduate from the Columbia Avenue campus. In my remarks, I read a quote from James Baldwin: “Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limits to where you can go.” Baldwin’s words grounded our class’s identity at BGA, and my own identity in the place where I grew up: a white house with black shutters and flowers in the yard. This is where I lived with my grandmother, where my mother, aunt, and uncle were raised. This is where I learned my family’s history. History was very much alive in our house, but the realities of slavery meant there were few records and little data, so our history lived mostly in shared stories. My aunt, our history detective, pored over archived census records, and we added names to our family tree. But only names, no stories attached. In August, I started following Fort Negley Park on Twitter. To honor the 2,771 African Americans conscripted to build the federal fortifications in Nashville, Fort Negley Park started to tweet each one’s name, individually. Knowing nothing about the Fort, I still recognized those names needed to be honored. Reading each one was the least I could do. Then, on September 28, my own family name appeared in the honor roll: my great-great-great grandfather, Ruffin Bright, and great-great grandfather, Egbert Bright, were among the men and women who built the Fort, battling unimaginable work and living conditions in the service of freedom and democracy. I will never know how or why Ruffin and Egbert got to Fort Negley. But now I do know those two were part of building this historic Fort. Men who were slaves, and counted as property. But at Fort Negley, they joined the war effort, and struggled for American ideals denied in their own lives. I visited Fort Negley early one morning. As I read the plaques, honoring the history and imagining my relatives’ lives there, I was struck by the Park’s vulnerability. Much like the men and women who built it, the Fort is invisible to many in Nashville. It is vulnerable to the Mayor’s plan to give it to for-profit developers. Can you imagine giving away the Franklin battlefields to commercial builders, that hallowed ground destroyed for profit? Is Fort Negley not also hallowed ground, honoring the men and women who built it? Some say history is a contest, where vocal winners fight over narratives of Truth. But what about stories of the vulnerable? The Fort Negley heroes, illiterate and impoverished, could not write their truth, nor tell their experience. They’ve been all but erased from history. Shouldn’t their stories matter? My great-great-great grandfather and great-great grandfather had no rights, no freedom, and no choices. In 2017, I do -- we all do – and their sacrifice is one reason why. Preserving Fort Negley Park should be a priority for all of us, not just a few historians, civic-minded people, and those with family in the honor roll. So, I ask you to get involved. Become a Friend of Fort Negley, and visit the Park. Follow and “like” the honor roll on Twitter. Email Mayor Barry and Metro Council members to voice your protest against the development plan. Parents, tell your children about the 2,771 African Americans who built the Fort. Teachers, embrace this Civil War history. And all Nashvillians, let’s send our visitors to Fort Negley, and enrich their tourist experience with this newly-voiced Truth. Take James Baldwin’s words to heart. As a people and a City, we are built on the African American sacrifice at Fort Negley Park. Our future will be richer for preserving that history now.