Paula Blackman’s
Night Train to Nashville: the greatest untold story of music city

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ABOUT THE BOOK

Set against the backdrop of Jim Crow, Night Train to Nashville takes readers behind the curtain of one of music’s greatest untold stories during the era of segregation and Civil Rights.

Backed by 15 years of research and interviews, Blackman shares the true story of how promotion of R&B music in the 1940’s by her grandfather, Edward “Gab” Blackman of WLAC radio, and William Sousa “Sou” Bridgeforth, owner of Nashville’s premier Black nightclub, inadvertently sparked a cultural revolution that ultimately led Music City to become the first in the south to desegregate.

In another time and place, Gab and Sou might have been as close as brothers, but in 1940s Nashville they remained separated by the color of their skin. Gab, a visionary yet opportunistic radio executive, saw something no one else did: a vast and untapped market with the R&B scene exploding in Black clubs across the city. He defied his industry, culture, government, and even his own family to broadcast Black music to a national audience.

Sou, the popular kingpin of Black Nashville and a grandson of enslaved persons, led this movement into the second half of the twentieth century as his New Era Club on the Black side of town exploded in the aftermath of this new radio airplay. As the popularity of Black R&B grew, integrated parties an underground concerts spread throughout the city, and this new scene faced a dangerous inflection point: Could a segregated society ever find true unity?

Taking place during one of the most tumultuous times in US history, Night Train to Nashville explores how one city, divided into two completely different and unequal communities, demonstrated the power of music to change the world.

BIOGRAPHY

Paula Hope Blackman is the daughter of Edward and Anne Duff Blackman, both of prominent Nashville families. Anne was a newspaper managing editor. Ed was an advertising executive.

Storytelling defined the Blackman children’s upbringing. Saturday mornings were spent at the library. The children were expected to read and then share the stories to their parents. Paula recalls how happy they were when she cried over Charlotte’s Web, thrilled to know she shared their love of books.

Although reading and writing was Paula’s lifelong passion, having witnessed her mother’s stress over deadlines, Paula chose a career in fine jewelry. She studied international business at Bellevue University near Omaha and graduated from the Gemological Institute of America in California. A graduate gemologist, Paula was one of the first female store managers for Zales and later owned a jewelry store. For nearly two decades she sold diamonds to jewelers until several violent robbery attempts left her with post-traumatic stress disorder. 

A therapist advised Paula to write about her experiences as therapy. The story was so captivating it sold to Hollywood. Afterward, Paula attended a professional screenwriting school where Night Train to Nashville began as a class project. Paula continued to research the story for years, eventually turning it into a creative non-fiction book. She has sold several stories to Hollywood and written Dearest Pauline, a stage play which debuted in Naples, Florida. She’s currently writing Dearest Pauline the book and rewriting Sightholder’s Promise, the therapy memoir that turned her lifelong hobby into a second career. 

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