The Business of Eradicating Racism

How Chakita Patterson is amplifying Black history in Nashville

By Jim Patterson

Chakita Patterson is way too vivacious and upbeat for a businesswoman during the coronavirus pandemic who is dependent on tourists for a big part of her customer base.

“Oh yeah, we’re fine,” Patterson says, sounding cheerful and optimistic.

Her company, United Street Tours, founded in 2018, offers walking tours of Nashville focusing on the Black experience. She temporarily halted all tours in March because of COVID-19. Eight months of bookings had to be refunded.

“As a small business, we were impacted by it,” she says. “But it’s more important for us to make sure our customers are OK.”

While she waits for the virus to subside, Patterson is keeping busy with the Rise Higher Institute, a virtual community she has created to bring people together to talk about racial issues, and a racial sensitivity program, The 7-Day Antiracism Challenge. The first question on the 7-Day Challenge is about how the participant identifies racially.

“We pretty much go through the Black experience in America,” Patterson said. “Just to wake people up to the reality that everybody has different experiences, and not to discount it because it’s different than the one you’ve experienced.”

Patterson said thousands of people worldwide have taken the challenge.

“It’s been a really awesome experience to see people open

up and be honest about times that they have participated in racism, either by standing silently aside while a racist act was taking place, or just by not being an ally to people experiencing it.”

The latest addition to Rise High Institute is a six-week course called Race & Civil Rights in American Life.

Patterson will also use the break from tours to get married in September to entrepreneur Ogden Rattliff.

“What Chakita has done and is doing is mobilizing thousands of people who want to get started on the antiracism journey,” says Ann Gillespie, a founding partner at Culture Shift Team, a Nashville-based public relations and consulting firm that helps organizations create culture-driven strategies.

“She creates safe but brave spaces for the challenging work of addressing societal and internalized racism, unlearning white-washed history and centering on racial justice and equity.”

Patterson, a native of Memphis, earned her bachelor’s degree at Middle Tennessee State University and went on to receive a master’s in social work from Radford University.

Her journey to starting United Street Tours began at the charter KIPP Nashville Collegiate High School, where she was dean of students. When Black History Month approached, she asked high school students what they wanted to study about African-American history.

“Basically, they didn’t know much,” Patterson says. “They gave the basics — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. … At some point we have to introduce students to a well-rounded view of our history so that they have a well-rounded view of the world.”

Patterson went home and complained to her fiancé, Ratliff, about how little students knew about Black history.

“Eventually he was like, ‘You need to stop complaining and do something about it. You’re the dean of students at that school. If anybody can do anything about this, you can.’”

“So I was inspired to teach students about Black history.”

She began to research the subject.

“So you begin to uncover the legacy of Congressman John Lewis and the Civil Rights movement in Nashville,” she says. “You see yourself go down this rabbit hole of history and information. “It was amazing to me.” That led to school field trips to visit important landmarks of the history of Black Nashville.

Branching out, she promoted the tour on Facebook.

“We sold out tours for the first six months,” Patterson says. “That’s when I was like, ‘Oh, we have something here.’”

Starting with a basic Black Nashville history tour, United Street Tours soon expanded with tours about Civil Rights, food and music. Walking tours range from one to three hours and cost from $27 to $80. One site included on Nashville Black History Walking Tour is Woolworth’s at 221 5th Ave. North, the site of the first lunch counter sit-ins during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Nashville. The Slavery to Freedom Walking Tour includes a visit to Riverfront Park, where slaves traveled via the Cumberland River into a life of bondage and later freedom and to Fort Nashborough, an outdoor museum, and replica of the original Nashville settlement of the 1700s.

Learotha Williams Jr., assistant professor of African American and public history at Tennessee State University, met Patterson for coffee when she was seeking guidance before launching her company.

“She had a lot of questions and I answered them as best I could,” Williams says. “She inquired about a lot of the stuff that was not being taught or might not be as known as it probably

should be. She asked about how I taught it.”

Williams tagged along on a tour one cold day, and came away impressed.

“Chakita has one of those personalities that is immediately welcoming,” Williams says. “She has a smile that will light up a room. She has a certain charisma about her that makes you want to listen to what she has to say.”

Williams teaches an African American history class two semesters a year at TSU. He notes that only 200 students out of the university’s 9,000 can take the course over any four-year period because class sizes are capped at 25 students.

“Over the course of one day she can speak to as many people that I speak to in two semesters,” Williams says.

Nashvillians should take advantage of what Patterson is offering, both online and when tours begin again, Gillespie says.

That’s true even if they’re a little bit uneasy about what they may learn.

“Reflecting on racism is way uncomfortable — it’s humbling and requires sustained vulnerability,” Gillespie says. “But it is not on par with what those experiencing racism have endured for centuries. There’s no comparison.

“So, if we haven’t all learned yet, ending racism is no longer optional.”

Patterson hopes to offer tours again in February 2021, Black History Month. But it’s not a certainty yet.

“Because things have been a little bit unpredictable with moving from (COVID-19) phase to phase, we just don’t want to make a huge announcement.”

Nashville “can’t yet say we are an antiracist city,” Gillespie says.

But it’s possible to make a move in that direction.

“Nashville, as nice and as friendly as it is known to be, has yet to fully acknowledge and account for its racist past and the legacy of disparities that persist today,” Gillespie says. “United Street Tours is one of the organizations that keeps the history of Nashville alive.

“That’s a precious gift.”

Jim Patterson is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee. He is not related to Chakita Patterson. For more information, visit https://unitedstreettours.com/ website.