The 'unofficial black mayor of North Nashville': Dwayne Tucker's climb out of poverty

Brad Schmitt | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption Millionaire 'mayor of North Nashville' Reaches Back to Help Kids in His Old Neighborhood LEAD Academy charter schools CEO Dwayne Tucker started his business career by launching two popular nightclubs in North Nashville

The first time, little Dwayne Tucker was shocked to see his uncles punching his father in the yard.

“Stop beating up my dad!” the boy shouted. “Stop hurting my dad!”

The fight started after his alcoholic father once again laid hands on his mother, and her brothers jumped in right away.

Conflict bubbled up now and again at 2401 Heiman St. in North Nashville, where Tucker lived with as many as 20 relatives. They shared four bedrooms, one bathroom and a bunch of hand-me-down clothes.

But Tucker mostly remembers lots of affection and good times there, where the boy often slept next to his doting grandmother, Mamaw. Every day, the boy played outside with his cousins and friends, and every evening, the family shared a sometimes-chaotic meal together.

He always felt supported and loved by his mother, Julia Tucker, a juvenile court probation officer and children’s counselor who mothered most of the troubled kids in North Nashville.

The house usually felt safe — unless his dad showed up drunk, trying to win back his mother. That’s when conflict started, made more explosive by the fact that most of Tucker’s uncles had their own problems with alcohol.

“I was a little scared and a little insecure about what was going on,” Tucker said.

“As a child, I was torn between who to support. I didn’t know whether to be supporting my father or joining in on the fight.”

Since then, Tucker has fought often — against poverty, racism, inferior neighborhood schools, low expectations and self-doubt.

He’s winning.

Tucker, 62, became a multimillionaire businessman who now runs LEAD charter schools for disadvantaged kids from poor neighborhoods — just like him.

His success started with a couple of upscale ‘80s nightclubs off Clarksville Highway — Wall Street and Park Avenue — that were so popular that some folks from the old neighborhood still call Tucker “the unofficial black mayor of North Nashville.”

'He blazed it'

But before they called him the mayor of North Nashville, most folks called Tucker “Chubby.” Some still do.

“He was fat as a little boy,” Frank Pillow, Tucker’s older cousin and role model, said matter-of-factly.

And he was a smart and motivated boy. Teachers often pushed Tucker’s mother to have him skip a grade.

He went to now-closed North High School, but Tucker, during an integration push, also spent a year at Hillwood High School.

He was greeted with protesters holding signs that read, “N….. go home!”

“I’m like, man, I don’t even know y’all! It was pretty tough getting into the building.”

Tucker worked his first job cleaning classrooms at age 13, determined to help his mother make ends meet.

By 17, Tucker, through his cousin Frank Pillow, landed a job at UPS, where he quickly was promoted to supervisor and hired other workers.

“Let me tell you, he blazed it,” Pillow said.

When Tucker graduated, he was making good money, giving his mom some and driving a 1969 blue Camaro with a black top.

“I was the bomb,” he said with a huge smile. “I thought I had arrived.”

That was no surprise to high school friends.

Said lifelong friend Charles “Chucky” Pope, 57: “He always was business minded.”

From Wall Street to Park Avenue

Still, Tucker’s cousin encouraged him to go to college, and since Pillow was a mentor, Tucker enrolled at Tennessee State University and continued working at UPS.

During his sophomore year, a friend at UPS approached Tucker about a recently closed spot in North Nashville across from public housing called Lil’ Abner’s. All they needed was $5,000 to reopen it, the friend said.

The two knew nothing about nightclubs. They had no business plan and just one idea about what to do — call it “Wall Street” to give it some class.

“It was exciting,” Tucker said, shrugging.

To make it even classier, the two added a dress code — tie and coat — and a cover charge “to keep out the riff raff.”

It worked. The small place was packed most weekends, and Tucker and his friends bought a much bigger place, an old Ben Franklin store in a shopping center on Clarksville Highway that they turned into a New York-style nightclub called Park Avenue.

And it exploded.

The club — with top-of-the-line sound, lights and food and drink — attracted the sharply dressed elite of Nashville’s African-American community. Professionals and TSU students rolled up in limos, BMWs, Mercedes and other shiny rides.

“That was the spot, man,” said musician Wendell “Bizz” Bigsby, 59, a lifelong Nashvillian.

“People my color who were doctors, lawyers, surgeons, bank presidents, teachers, everybody. It was the crème de la cocoa.”

Patrons loved the friendly, safe environment and the big-name acts who played occasionally at Park Avenue.

“It was community, it was family, and it was really nice — none of the violence like it is now,” said Nashville native Camille Horton, 59, a substance abuse counselor.

“You could really dress up and have a good time,” Horton said. “It was the bomb diggity for real. The place to be.”

Tucker spent most nights and weekends there, but after graduating from TSU, he eventually took a corporate HR job in Texas.

Carryout or delivery?

Back in Nashville, cash started disappearing from the club, and tax agencies started cracking down on Park Avenue, putting the club hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.

Within five years, Tucker came back to file bankruptcy and clean up the club as best he could. No club, no money, no more corporate-climbing HR job, no more company car or benefits, little support from others.

“A lot of people you thought were friends disappeared when you became broke.”

Tucker, discouraged, had to restart his career at a Pizza Hut in Brentwood. He got $25,000 a year as a manager trainee.

After training in Donelson, Tucker arrived on his first day in Brentwood in his sister-in-law’s Plymouth Champ with rotted-out floorboards. His employees drove to work in mom’s or dad’s Lexus or BMWs.

Tucker started off as a strict disciplinarian — until all his employees walked out at once in the middle of a lunch rush.

Some reflection and a half a pitcher of Bud Light that night helped him realize he needed to change his approach.

Within six months, Tucker had tripled the store’s business.

And he had such an outstanding launch of the store’s delivery operation that it captured the attention of Pizza Hut’s CEO, who flew to Nashville to ask Tucker how he did it.

Shortly after that, Tucker landed a job at American Express, and he continued to land bigger and better-paying corporate jobs with stock options. The pinnacle: He became president of a group of financial services companies generating $500 million in revenues. Tucker retired in 2009.

That didn’t last long.

Back to the neighborhood

Tucker became interested in LEAD Schools for disadvantaged kids, which started with a charter school on Heiman Street in North Nashville, just a few blocks from Tucker’s childhood home.

A few years after joining the board, Tucker became interim CEO and was named to the job permanently in May.

“Equality in education should not be about what part of town you live in,” Tucker said.

“All children, regardless of where they live or their socio-economic status, should have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education.”

To that end, Tucker is proud that, for the fifth straight year, 100 percent of LEAD seniors who applied to college were accepted, according to the school. Of those, 83 percent are first-generation college students.

Tucker said he feels “very humbled” to be a huge success from his neighborhood and now, to be able to help kids from his neighborhood.

“You don’t get to be where you are on your own,” he said.

Tucker credits his cousin, his mom, his teachers at TSU and others with his success.

“I find that using your own experiences to help others achieve their goals, make a difference in their lives — this opportunity to give back — is a blessing.”

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 and on Twitter @bradschmitt.