Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus

06/26/2026

North Nashville knows what it means to have its future decided for us. We are the community that Interstate 40 cut in half. We've watched gentrification price out the families who built these blocks, and we've lived the long arithmetic of disinvestment.

So when Fisk University announced that a data center could rise in the heart of 37208, the anger and anxiety were not an overreaction. They are earned.

Since that announcement, I’ve heard from many of you. But I want you to be heard by Fisk, too.

Let me be clear: I do not believe Black and underinvested communities should keep absorbing the environmental cost of other people's progress. The pollution, the strain on our water and power, the health burden that always seems to land on the same zip codes. Those harms are real, and I will not pretend this is a tidy debate with two equal sides. It isn't.

And here is the harder truth I owe you. I represent Fisk — one of the most sacred HBCUs in this nation and the oldest institution in Nashville — and like so many of our HBCUs, it has been asked to do generational work on starvation funding. I'm fighting this same battle over the historic underfunding of TSU.

So this is the question underneath the entire fight: With or without a data center, how do we secure the survival of this culturally irreplaceable institution for another 160 years?

That is the real issue. The data center is a symptom of a deeper wound: we have never properly invested in the Black institutions that raised us. If we only fight the symptom, we will be right back here again at the next proposal, the next crisis, the next hard bargain a starved institution feels forced to make.

That's the conversation we're hosting. Bring your questions and concerns. Bring your ideas for how we save Fisk without sacrificing the neighborhood that loves her.

I am not here to sell you anything. I am here to listen, to learn the truth, and to fight the fight that actually matters.

📅 Monday, June 29 | 6:30–8:00 PM CST
📍 Lee Chapel AME Church, 1200 Dr. D.B. Todd Jr. Blvd
🔗 In person or via my FB Live / YouTube - register: https://www.naacpnashville.org/event-details/north-nashville-community-townhall

Hosted by the NAACP Nashville Branch, Rep. Harold Love Jr., Councilmember Brandon Taylor, Fisk University, and me.

06/26/2026

Folks, we’re dead last for student funding

06/25/2026

State Republicans just gave a company — that in 2023 had no experience managing voucher programs — a big contract boost. Sen. Heidi Campbell raised red flags.

06/24/2026

🪨 Sen. Heidi Campbell has thoughts about the new rock Republicans put on the Capitol lawn

06/22/2026

Happy Monday, Tennessee. Raise your hand if you hit a pothole on your commute to work today? Or sat in gridlock traffic? 🙋🙋
Despite doubling our state budget since taking power, Tennessee roads are in worse shape than ever and we’re $58 billion behind on transportation projects.

06/19/2026

06/19/2026

15 years of total Republican Party control and our collective quality of life keeps getting worse—especially for children.

TFP: “Tennessee experienced a sharp decline in measures of child well-being in recent years…”

Welcome to & the TN GOP’s Tennessee. https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/jun/18/report-tennessee-sees-decline-in-most-measures-of/?brid=YWdncwHdbQ0uuJnv5V0LX8gKZxYp

06/19/2026

DATA SCIENTIST: “When a computer is told to redraw TN’s map while diluting the Black vote, it produces something similar to the plane Republican lawmakers approved… race targeting explains it much greater than partisan targeting.” https://www.pressreader.com/usa/knoxville-news-sentinel/20260617/281565182462535

06/19/2026

Juneteenth is not just a holiday — it is a history lesson and a call to action.

When I serve in the Tennessee General Assembly, I carry with me the truth that freedom has never been freely given. It has been demanded, organized, litigated, and legislated — inch by inch, generation by generation. Juneteenth reminds us where that fight began and challenges us to be honest about how much further we have to go.

In a state where voting rights are under attack, where our children's history is being erased from classrooms, and where economic inequality continues to fall along racial lines — we cannot afford to treat Juneteenth as a day of celebration alone. It must also be a day of recommitment.

Today I recommit to the people of District 19: to fight for your freedom in every bill, every vote, and every floor speech. Because liberation is not a moment — it's a movement.

— Senator Charlane Oliver, Tennessee State Senate District 19