Charley Pride: I’m Just Me: A Film Screening and Live Discussion with Director Barbara Hall
Date: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Time: 5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Location: The Roots Theater, National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), 510 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203
Event Description:
Join us to honor legendary Country Music Hall of Fame artist Charley Pride on what would have been Pride’s 82nd birthday in a special evening celebrating his musical and sporting legacies. Often referred to as Country music’s “first Black superstar,” the late Charley Pride was both a renowned American Country artist with deep ties to Nashville and a baseball player who started his professional career as a pitcher in the Negro American League. This event will explore Pride’s expansive career in professional baseball and his rise within Country music’s commercial ranks, unpacking how his experiences in each provided Pride with a unique perspective to reflect upon larger questions of identity and belonging in two of America’s most distinctive and foundational cultural forms. Join us for a screening of Charley Pride: I’m Just Me, an insightful documentary that traces Pride’s distinctive life and career, followed by a live discussion and Q&A with the film’s director Barbara Hall.
Join us before the event at 5:30 PM for special after-hours at the Museum, featuring FREE admission, self-guided tours, and light bites and drinks for purchase.
Charley Pride: I’m Just Me is part of Playing Beyond the Field, a free, three-part series exploring the historic relationship between music and sport, with a particular focus on Nashville’s robust African American musical and sporting legacies. Curated by the co-directors of The Sound of Victory, Courtney M. Cox and Perry B. Johnson, Playing Beyond the Field is organized in collaboration with the Vanderbilt Sports & Society Initiative and the National Museum of African American Music.
About the film:
Charley Pride: I’m Just Me traces the improbable journey of Charley Pride, from his humble beginnings as a sharecropper’s son on a cotton farm in segregated Sledge, Mississippi to his career as a Negro American League baseball player and his meteoric rise as a trailblazing country music superstar. The documentary reveals how Pride’s love for music led him from the Delta to a larger, grander world. In the 1940s, radio transcended racial barriers, making it possible for Pride to grow up listening to and imitating Grand Ole Opry stars like Ernest Tubb and Roy Acuff. The singer arrived in Nashville in 1963 while the city roiled with sit-ins and racial violence. But with boldness, perseverance and undeniable musical talent, he managed to parlay a series of fortuitous encounters with music industry insiders into a legacy of hit singles, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Narrated by Grammy-nominated country singer Tanya Tucker, the film features original interviews with country music royalty, including Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker and Marty Stuart, as well as on-camera conversations between Pride and special guests, including Rozene Pride (his wife of 61 years), Willie Nelson and fellow musicians.