Hi everyone! Welcome (back) to campus!

 

I would like to invite you to attend Streets & Feets: A Living Exhibit of The Bottom. Created by Dr. Enkeshi El-Amin, founder of The Bottom Knox*, this interactive event tours the area of Knoxville originally known as The Bottom**, which was destroyed due to urban renewal in the 1950s.

 

Time & Location

Aug 27, 4:30 PM

The Bottom, 2340 E Magnolia Ave, Knoxville, TN 37917, USA

 

About the Event

This living exhibit was developed in collaboration with former residents of The Bottom. It offers a tour via KAT Trolley of their neighborhood, anchored by signs of the “streets and feets” they remember. The exhibit will tour the original Bottom with these elders, whose “feets” traversed the “streets” of the neighborhood decades ago. Participants will listen to their stories, imagine their kinship and affirm their existence.

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I am proud to say that a number of graduate students from my Fall 2021 Black Geographies course contributed to the research for Streets & Feets. I extend gratitude to them for volunteering their time throughout 2021 and 2022 to aid in this project’s completion. They are: Bethany Craig, Devyn Kelly, Rosemary Ayelazuno, Victoria Haynes, Elizabeth Courtney, Sam Myers-Miller, and Bergit Uhran from Geography and Sustainability and Elizabeth Tarulis from Anthropology. Additional thanks to Devyn who has been meeting with Dr. El-Amin all summer in preparation for this event.

 

Hope to see you there. Happy first week of classes!

 

*The Bottom Knox is an event space and bookstore featuring African American authors located in East Knoxville. Space to sit, read, work, and have tea. Drop by sometime.

 

**The a colloquial term “the bottom” was commonly used in reference to locations for African American neighborhoods in cities during the 20th century, clearly demarking urban segregation practices.