Flagg Grove School - Tina Turner Museum
Hi everybody,
I decided to create some new pages with all the info about the Flagg Grove School, the school Tina went to when she was young. It has now be turned into the Tina Turner Museum, that you can visit every day.
As you all probably know the school was moved to a new location and was completely renovated.
I start with the latest news and you can go on reading to the start of this enterprise.
I want to credit Sonia Outlaw-Clark, director of the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center, Elle Denneman, President of the Tina Turner Fanclub, Michael L. Anthamatten, Keith Alton Gambill, Tim Batross, Laurel Hudgens Herring and Billy King, the president of The Big Black Creek Historical Association for all their info and photos.
This is what Tina said about the Flagg Grove School in the Vogue of March 2013.
Lets go back to Nutbush one more time. They moved the Flagg Grove School, that you went to when you were a child, to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center. Were you part of this project?
TT: In my song "Nutbush City Limits" I sing "Church house, gin house, schoolhouse, outhouse". But the school of which I sang was a school for white people. It wasn’t my school. So when I got the message that they moved a school from Nutbush to the Center I thought: "Oh no they attach my name to a school for white people!". It is ok, but I don’t want to be involved!
But later on I learned that Flagg Grove was moved, the school I mean, and that is the one that I went to. The school and the land on which it stood belonged to my great grandfather Benjamin Flagg… Now I am involved and that will become even stronger with time, since I know that is has all to do with my background, with my family. And I am very proud that I am the one of my family that can preserve this history.
At the website of the Heritage center they say that the Flagg Grove school is one of the few preserved afro-american schools. What kind of school was it and what kind of memories do you have of the school? Were you a good student?
TT: Just one room! And there were lessons for 3 groups, from one to 3. The school was from 8 in the morning till 3 in the afternoon. I walked to school, because there were no busses. I went with my sister and on the way we met other schoolmates who also lived in our village. It was really nice.
I wasn’t a very good student, but my schoolmates and my teacher liked me.
That did help me to succeed. My true talent was in another area, that helped me through my life, my talent for singing and dancing.
11 October 2014
Here are some more videos from the opening of the Tina Turner Museum.
The third video has some great stories!
29 September 2014
A lot of Tina Turner fans took pictures during the opening of the new Tina Turner Museum in the restored Flagg Grove School. Here is the booklet the people that came to the opening got. It tells the story of the school until now. At the end a photo of the plaque with all the names of the people that donated 50 Dollars or more to make this restoration possible!
And a video from the the opening with the artists that congratulated Tina Turner. Big thanks to Laurel Herring!
