Deep Dish Conversations

Contemporary interviews with Nashvillians about race, poverty, policing, injustice, and reform

What does it mean to be a Nashvillian? A Black Nashvillian? A white Nashvillian? What does it mean to be an organizer, an ally, an elected official, an agent for change?Deep Dish Conversations began as a running online interview series in which host Jerome Moore sits down over pizza with Nashville leaders and community members to talk about the past, present, and future of the city and what it means to live here. The result is honest conversation about racism, housing, policing, poverty, and more in a safe, brave, person-to-person environment that allows for disagreement.

This book is a curated collection of the most striking interviews from the first few seasons of the series, with a foreword by Dr. Sekou Franklin, an introduction by Moore, and contextual introductions to each interviewee. Figures like Judge Sheila Calloway, comedian Josh Black, anti-racism speaker Tim Wise, organizer Jorge Salles Diaz, and many more explore their wide-ranging perspectives on social change in a city in the midst of massive demographic and ideological shifts.

For anyone in any twenty-first-century cityDeep Dish Conversations offers a lot to think about—and a lot of ways to think about it.

Foreword by Dr. Sekou Franklin
Acknowledgments
Introduction

Part I: We the North
1. Jamel Campbell-Gooch
2. Joshua Black

Part II: Life in Prison
3. Theeda Murphy
4. Calvin "Fridge" Bryant
5. Rahim Buford

Part III: The Elected
6. Christiane Buggs
7. Judge Sheila Calloway
8. Dawn Deaner

Part IV: White People
9. Tim Wise
10. Will Acuff

Part V: Protection or Harm
11. Jorge Salles Diaz
12. Captain Carlos Lara
13. Safer Schools Nashville