The Chattanooga Festival of Black Arts & Ideas: Juneteenth Independence Day is working with the City of Chattanooga, River City Co., Bessie Smith Cultural Center and The Chattanooga News Chronicle to highlight MLK Boulevard as Chattanooga’s Black Wall Street. With permission from the River City Co., we hope to put Pan-African RBG flags on poles down MLK Boulevard. 

Together with the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, we are designing and recreating signs of historical Black businesses that once operated on MLK Boulevard during its heyday in the 1920’s. To honor MLK Boulevard’s history, these signs will be placed where the businesses once stood. 

As an educational element, we are working closely with John Edwards and his team at the Chattanooga News Chronicle to create and share a recreated newspaper with pictures of the Tulsa Massacre aftermath, Juneteenth, Ed Johnson and more Chattanooga history.