Part 1: A Change is Gonna Come

The Promise

Nashville Public Radio

Society & Culture

4.9 • 777 Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2018

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At 61 years old, Vernell McHenry is like the grandmother of her corner of James Cayce. Where she’s lived for more than 17 years, greeting the neighborhood from a metal folding beach chair on her stoop. But Cayce is about the be transformed, torn down and rebuilt as mixed income apartments. And now, Vernell has a decision to make. Does she stay in her dilapidated and aging apartment where her friends and a gaggle of smiling kids live next door? Or does she go down the hill to a brand new building, potentially losing her social life and sense of home in the process?

**Music Credits: **
Our theme music is by The Insider, additional music by Fleslit and Willbe, all found through the Free Music Archive. The archival audio, found through YouTube, is from the United States Housing Agency.

**Production Credits: **
Writing and reporting: Meribah Knight
Editing: Blake Farmer, Anita Bugg. With additional help from Tony Gonzalez, Emily Siner, Chas Sisk and Julieta Martinelli
Sound Design: Tony Gonzalez
Fact Checking: Steve Cavendish

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I wanted something better for me and better for the neighborhood.
0:12.5	These projects been us since I was a little bit together.
0:16.0	Black people here, white people here, you know, that's how I lived.
0:19.5	We need to have communities that are mixed use, mixed income, and lift people up.
0:26.8	We've been looking forward to this for many years.
0:30.0	And I'm sure that there's some people who have their doubts that we're going to do what we said we're going to do.
0:36.3	Unless once lived in poverty, it may be hard to appreciate that it's damn hard to get out of.
0:44.9	I'm Maribon Knight, and you're listening to The Promise, Life, Death, and Change in the Projects.
0:52.7	It's a podcast from Nashville Public Radio, a series of stories
0:56.6	about life in public housing, smack in the middle of a city on the rise, about epic inequality
1:03.3	and a growing divide in one Nashville neighborhood. But the city says they can bring it all together.
1:12.3	They've got a grand experiment to mix things up and a bold promise that everyone will get something better. Episode one, a change
1:20.7	is going to come.
1:34.8	The The beach is the sandy beach, the water is blue.
1:38.5	We got my palm trees sitting out there.
1:46.4	And I'm sitting and stepping on a pineapple spitzer with the little umbrella.
1:51.1	I do travel away from here in my mind.
1:53.3	I just don't sit here.
1:54.6	I'll be traveling away from here.
2:00.1	The place Vernel McHenry is trying to get away from is the James Casey Homes,
2:02.9	Nashville's largest public housing complex,
2:08.5	home to more than 1,800 people who are mostly African American, mostly children,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -2622 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Nashville Public Radio, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Nashville Public Radio and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.