Our Story

“What Can We Do?”

In June of 2020 Pastor Ronnie Mitchell of Nashville’s New Livingstone Church visited a small book study group meeting at a local coffee shop in Nashville. This was about a month after the brutal murder of George Floyd that had ignited racial passions throughout our country. Pastor Ronnie shared his concerns about racial justice with them, and almost immediately seven people stepped forward, wanting to know what could be done and how they could help. This then, was the birthing of what would become the Racial Justice Resource Group.

Because of the Covid pandemic, the Group met via Zoom meetings for months, sharing information, gathering facts, and brainstorming as to how they could impact the racial issues facing Nashville. Early on the Group’s vision began to take shape, searching for the ways in which they could “change how the world sees and treats people and communities of color”. Soon out of that vision the “ABC Community Development Initiative (A/Attainable Affordable Housing, B/Business Development, and C/Community Compassion”) quickly evolved.

In less than a year the number of members had almost doubled.

Clarity and Momentum

Then in the spring of 2021 Nashville’s Mayor, John Cooper, introduced his I-40 Cap project, designed to “stitch together” the once-booming Black neighborhoods on Jefferson Street that had been split and devastated when the interstate was built in the 1960s. The Racial Justice Resource Group quickly recognized, however, that the project fell short of atoning for many of the past injustices done to the community. Several impassioned speeches and meetings with the Mayor by Pastor Ronnie and Group members emphasized the need for not only the involvement and input from members of the community, but the need for additional funds to support what had now become the ABC Community Development Initiative.

Then, when the Group learned of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and it’s Reconnecting Communities program, things quickly moved to a higher level. The multiple talents in the Group were now being focused not only on the ABC Community Development Initiative and how it would support and complement the I-40 Cap project, but how by implementing it alongside the federal Reconnecting Communities program a model might be created which could then be replicated in other cities throughout the country in similar situations.

And the Group had now grown into a compassionate and racially diverse group of more than twenty people - made up of pastors, professors, consultants, housing experts, nonprofit professionals, small business owners, and members of the community! In less than two years a small group of volunteers had come together to begin doing the grassroots work of rebuilding - rebuilding homes, businesses, and communities in Nashville’s communities of color. A vision that, united together, will be achieved.

—
Rose Wynne Brooks
Executive Director

Ronnie T. Mitchell
Pastor, New Livingstone Church