UNESCO adds Nashville's Fort Negley to its Slave Route Project

Kyren Harvey
The Tennessean

Carolyn Bright Worthy said she feels vindicated knowing that a Nashville park is getting a global platform.

Bright Worthy is a descendant of Puffin and Egbert Bright, former slaves who worked and fought on the Civil War-era Fort Negley, which was recognized Tuesday as part of UNESCO's Slave Route Project.

"It is an honor to have a place where my family fought and died to be recognized," Bright Worthy said. "Not many people know or care about the people who are related to the ones that were enslaved there."

Fort Negley was a Union Army fort that was built by African Americans — a combination of runaway slaves, free blacks and local conscripted labor, many of whom are believed to be buried on the site.

The UNESCO Slave Route Project was launched in 1994 to "break the silence surrounding the slave trade" and create a worldwide registry of historically significant sites for slavery.

With Tuesday's designation, Fort Negley joins only a handful of such sites in America.

"For the descendant population, Fort Negley is sacred. It's a battlefield in many senses of the word," said Dr. Angelea Sutton, a professor at Vanderbilt University and one of the founders of the Vanderbilt Fort Negley Descendants Project.

The descendants project is working to locate as many descendants of Fort Negley as possible to help "humanize Fort Negley," Sutton said.

At the event Tuesday, Mayor David Briley said Fort Negley is "the place we could tell a different story."

Fort Negley is open dawn to dusk year-round. The visitors center is open 12-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday.

An exhibit containing 17 portraits of men who served in Company G of the 25th United States Colored Troops is on display at the visitors center until June 19.