L-Club Provides Opportunities and Space for Choices

Pam Kidd, who founded the L-Club with her husband, David, describes it as a monthly gathering of progressive people who learn about and discuss issues. She likes to think of the process as providing opportunities for club members to get the knowledge they need and make their own choices on how to respond. For a totally volunteer group with very little formal infrastructure and a nearly nonexistent budget, it is remarkably successful.

If “grassroots” means “basic,” then the origins of the L-Club in Nashville, Tennessee, are about as grassroots as it gets. You see, it started over a dinner table sometime in the early 2000s. The exact date isn’t important to them. At first, it was just a small group of friends looking to share a good meal, some ideas, and some interests that might not have been welcomed by many of their more conservative acquaintances. (Yes, the “L” stands for “liberal.”)

Just a meal. Just lively conversation. But the opportunity to talk about who they were and issues that were important to them felt so good! That simple idea mushroomed. Now the group’s email list includes over 600 people. They meet monthly and enjoy extraordinary speakers who come willingly, gratis. Attendance fluctuates depending on the topics, which include such subjects as racial inequities, political issues, discrimination against minority groups, public education, voter outreach training, affordable housing, homelessness, and gun violence.

For the most part, the group doesn’t respond in a coordinated effort (with the exception of a vigorous toy drive each December). People are encouraged to make their own choices and act on them. But that doesn’t preclude clusters of folks taking on a project, or people being at the meetings to sign up folks for various activities, e.g., “Get Out the Vote” efforts.

In the last year, L-Club hosted a panel discussion with transgender women and invited all mayoral candidates in the Nashville race to come in and make a short presentation. One month the club hosted a bestselling New York Times author, Andrew Maraniss, who discussed his concept of the intersection of sports and social justice at one meeting. Another meeting dealt with the uncomfortable reality that increased policing usually endangers people of color rather than making them feel safer.

Most recently, the monthly meeting was a bus tour of different sites in the African American community. The tour was led by Dr. Leothera Williams, an expert on African American Studies and a professor at Tennessee State University. The tour was based on his book, “I’ll Take You There,” and took participants to locations where the conventional knowledge of those sites hid a much larger and darker truth.

For instance, the stop at old Ft. Negley, the largest fortification built by the occupying Union forces, was known for receiving runaway slaves and/or freed slaves. The backstory for the site tells of the cruel and inhumane conditions the people who came to them for help received, virtually enslaving them again.

Another stop during this four-hour tour took members to the scenic Courthouse and Square. There, the story hidden from the history books, told how the beautiful square was the auction block for slave sales where females stood naked before the men who sought to buy them and where a mother’s children might be stripped from her and sold, never to be seen by her again.

On its homepage, the L-Club describes itself this way:

L-Club is a group of progressive people who gather monthly. Finding pleasure in the presence of kindred spirits, we explore the issues of the day, share our passions and explore each other’s causes.

We enjoy extraordinary speakers who come willingly to share their views with us.

We learn. 
We share. 
We eat and drink. 
We laugh. 
Sometimes we shed a tear or two.

And always, we look forward, liberally … to a bright blue tomorrow!

The L-Club is proud to take its place in Nashville as an awareness-raising organization. For Pam Kidd, the experience has helped her face the reality of having always lived a life of white privilege, and the knowledge has helped her see the humanity in others. She believes others in the L-Club have been similarly affected.

It all started with a few friends at a dinner table, yet it has empowered and inspired hundreds of people over the years. And the ripples of influence they send out help make Nashville a better place.

For those thinking about forming their own L-Club, Pam Kidd’s advice is simple, “Start where you are.”