A Legacy of Love: Reflections from Uncle Nearest- Sanai Adams

A Legacy of Love: Reflections from Uncle Nearest

After reading Love and Whiskey by Fawn Weaver I started to contextualize how the hidden legacy of Uncle Nearest Green displays the values of love and community along with entrepreneurship. Reading the text was one thing, but traveling from Georgia to Tennessee and being able to walk the grounds of  the distillery while hearing the rich history it holds first hand was truly extraordinary. From being enslaved in Maryland to later working in Tennessee and mentoring young Jack Daniels in whiskey-making, Uncle Neartest is an under-recognized black man who changed the whiskey game forever. For being able to help develop the Lincoln County Process and  being the first Black Master distiller in the U.S,  his work is terribly underappreciated and very unknown. Being there turned this history from words on a page into a lived experience. Walking the grounds of this place allowed me to see the love within labor, feel the true weight this life changing legacy holds, and recognize truths that can only be fully understood by standing in the very place they were created. 

While walking around we took photos that encapsulate our observations within the components of this distillery with one of those being a Love Story. For this, I took photos of the pictures hanging on the wall of descendants of Nearest Green. One in particular was his grandson Oscar “OTT” Green, a man who contributed to the legacy of whiskey making by carrying on the family tradition. He worked at the Jack Daniels distillery along with his brothers and cousins to ensure that the Green family’s influence on the whiskey-making process persisted across generations. This, in and of itself shows a love story through legacy and an enduring love across generations. This reflects a form of devotion that transcends time and a love for family that can’t be destroyed. By staying connected to the craft he loved, Green's sons and grandsons carried on his work and honored his legacy. In my opinion, while this love story is not romantic it displays a greater love by transcending individual desire that lasts across generations. It is a love that expresses not only love but respect, family, and legacy. Similarly, Robin D.G. Kelley’s ,Freedom Dreams, displays a love stronger than romance. Kelley writing about freedom being sustained by imagination and the dreams of black people across generations reminds me that Nearest Green's story is truly a freedom dream. His family continuing to work in distilleries reclaimed and reimagined his dreams by fueling the dream of liberation and recognition. 

Along with a love story, we also focused on signs of complexity throughout the distillery. In search of this I found uneasy details throughout the speakeasy, one main one being a framed photo of black women holding a sign that says “ Head-Quarters for Colored Women Voters”. In my view, this image is to celebrate black women's miniscule presence in politics at that time, a place where we were never represented, but the wording on the sign shows that even with this little position we still had limitations placed upon us due to a segregated society. Representing resilience along with the painfully uneasy reality of exclusion shows how black women's contributions existed within the contradictions of pride and oppression.  Lastly, to highlight tension between brand and history I captured a photo of multiple whiskey bottles together. The labels on the bottles represent the reclamation of Nearest Green legacy and by making his name extremely visible again is an act of historic recovery. It makes sure that the history is honored and how marketing and memory work hand in hand.

All in all, traveling from Georgia to Tennessee highlighted how close these histories are and how they still shape Southern identity today. Succeeding through something even as it wounds means realizing whiskey carries both cultural pride along with the painful history of slavery and erasure. Uncle Nearest's success honors a legacy while carrying a deep responsibility. Selling the whiskey also means carrying the honor of telling the truth to ensure that recognition goes beyond profit. This is the point where entrepreneurship crosses with responsibility. When you sell a product with deep history you must ensure the narrative behind the product honors and acknowledges the history. Stepping into this distillery allowed me to honor the history. It made me see myself as not just a student but as part of a community with a larger story forcing me to reflect on who I am and what histories I carry forward.

By- Sanai Adams

Love Story

Complication or Tension

Brand vs. History

By- Sanai Adams