NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — The state’s first all-black license plates are on the road to production.
Jess Williams, the communications director at the Equity Alliance, said the project has been months in the making.
“The idea came from us just wanting to show pride, have people show pride for the Equity Alliance and for the work that we’re doing in Nashville,” Williams said.
The Equity Alliance,a racial justice advocacy group, announced the project on Giving Tuesday.
To see the goal through the nonprofit had to receive 1,000 orders in 150 days. A challenge Williams said required a lot of work.
“We enlisted the help of literally everybody that we had in our network. Our family, our friends, we posted on social media,” she said.
Each plate costs $35. Of that, $4 goes to the state of Tennessee, $31 goes to the Equity Alliance. Williams said the money will go toward helping promote civic engagement and standing up against attacks on democracy.
“The way that this initiative will help us, we’ll be able to expand our voter guide which is a Tennessee voter guide, where we’re able to give everyday Tennesseans all of the candidate information that they’ll need for the upcoming election cycle,” she said.
Xavier Payne, known as X Payne, is the artist behind the design.
“It feels really exciting, it makes me feel really proud to be a part of this movement,” he said.
After hours of sketching, he found the one.
“We went through a bunch of designs and I think it went from busier to kind of more formal and controlled I would say,” Payne said.
People can still order a license plate and drivers can expect to see them on the roads come fall.
“We needed 1,000 to be able to put the license plate into production, so now that we have that 1,000, everybody can get it. It is Tennessee's first all-black license plate," Williams said.
