Nashville Narratives: Stories from My Hometown

Nashville, Tennessee

Oftentimes when people think of Nashville they think only of bachelorette parties and country music. However, Nashville has a deep connection to the Civil Rights movement and rich Black history that we can explore in the digital archive.

Pamela Gunter Smith is the first female president of York College in Pennsylvania, she describes her upbringing in Nashville where her father owned a funeral home, “You know Nashville because of all the colleges there, you had Fisk [University], you had Meharry [Medical College], you had Tennessee State [University], had a strong black middle class infrastructure. There were a lot of professionals. And so quite frankly I never thought about segregation because we had our own movie theater. I never sat in the balcony. We went to the Ritz Theater on Jefferson Street. It was the main drag, right. We had our own restaurants. We had our own hotels. I do remember as a kid that if we traveled outside of Nashville it was difficult to find a place to stay. You would always stay with friends. Generally we stayed with friends of my dad, other people who were in the funeral business. So it was a very rich environment in which, for a person of color, the African American community if you were in the middle class was very comfortable.”

Black Students outside Paramount Theater in Nashville demonstrating to desegregate the theater in 1961 | Source: The Tennessean

Barbara Bowles was the first Black woman to become an equity manager in Chicago, the first Black woman to be the Vice President of First National Bank, and the first Black woman to launch a mutual fund. She describes the activities of her youth in Nashville and the impact of theater integration, “Nashville was interesting. Because it really truly was a college town. And we really lived on the cusp of that community. My father as you know, died at a young age. And so my grandparents--his parents came to live near us. And my grandfather owned a grocery store right across the street from the local high school, Pearl High . And I worked in his store and got to hear all the jukebox music before anybody else. And was able to kind of hang out with the high school kids when I was, you know, still a preteen. And that to me was fun. We also lived right across the street from the local funeral home. And we lived right down the street from Fisk University. So there was a lot of culture in my life growing up. Because my mother [Rebecca Jennings Landers] had gone to Tennessee State [University], I was able to participate in a lot of the activities that went--that took place at both of the schools. Consequently when I was growing up, I was in two dance groups--I participated in what was called Children's Theater at Tennessee State. It was a thespian group, but you could do it as a young child. I played the violin and the piano. And my brothers played the trumpet. So I had to play that too. And it was--It was great growing up in Nashville. I guess the only thing from the entertainment point of view that we didn't do was go to the local theater. And that was because we had to go up the back steps, and my mother would not allow that. So we never went to the movies. Probably until I was--I think eleven years old when I--she finally relented and let us see 'The Ten Commandments'. We actually did [have to sit in the balcony]. And, therefore, our family chose not to ever go back to that theater or the movies again. We never did. We never went back. When Nashville Theater became integrated--when I was in college actually--I think that may be the time that I went later. And then only occasionally, I always felt uncomfortable. Interestingly enough, the theaters didn't do very well at the point of integration because African Americans chose not to participate. They didn't go. And so to this day, there are very few theaters in Nashville proper. Most of them are in the malls way out in the suburbs.”

16th & Jefferson Street Nashville in the 1950s with a club and hotel owned by Meharry Medical College alumnus Jack Brown

Jefferson Street, Nashville 2023 | Source: Peter’s Big Adventure

Club Baron on Jefferson Street in Nashville, 2023

Reginald Stuart, a prolific journalist who worked for famous Nashville newspaper The Tennessean, describes the Black club scene in Nashville during his youth, “That was the Club Baron. It was owned by a Meharry graduate named Jack Brown. I think Jack Brown finished the School of Pharmacy. And then the other place on Himan Street, H-I-M-A-N, Himan Street, was called Maseo's Recreation Center. That was built by a man who was a contractor and he built this big hall primarily for skating. But he expanded the portfolio and grew, you know, singing artists, recording artists on the weekend. You know so he'd have a remote, radio remote broadcast, skating parties in the afternoon and then at night time it would become a show hall. Now my one greatest achievement in running back and forth to all the restaurants and, and clubs, was at an early age before most of the world ever heard of Ike and Tina Turner, Ike and Tina Turner came through every six or eight months. You know it was a dollar twenty five [$1.25] in advance and a dollar and a half [$1.50] at the door, show how long ago, how far back it was. And I went down to the recreation center one afternoon, one Saturday afternoon as they were arriving to practice. And I had the distinct honor of carrying her bag into the hall. Man I was on cloud nine, right. You heard Ike and Tina Turner on the radio all the time. They were playing the records all the time. And so they were in our world at that time, right, top of the line. And, and they filled the hall that night, right. But I had the honor of having been ambitious enough to run down there and said you need some help unloading your truck, right? Cause they drove a big, long extended Chevrolet truck. I said I'll carry your bags for you. Said okay you can carry my bag. So it's only like carrying a bag, you know, 100 feet, it's like you know, you know a blessed 100 feet, right. It was a great experience. But, but you could--you're gonna see them into the hotels, rights, there was Brown's Hotel. Brown's Hotel was owned by Jack Brown who owned the Club Baron. And there was another hotel, forgot the name of it, right. And so if you were hanging around there, you could see all the artists. And so you'd see them eating breakfast or sitting around just talking. So I got a chance to meet Solomon Burke, the Sims Twins, and four or five other artists, Ted Taylor. Regional stars who were big at their time. And you had a chance to say okay, this is what music is all about, right. They sleep late, they get up in the morning, they eat, they go practice, rehearse, right. They stay up all night long. And they've got to dive when the gunshots start, pow, pow, pow, in the clubs, right. So--and you know that the shows were over every weekend because all the cars were, you know, rev up the engines, right, and you'd always hear some gunfire. There was always some, somebody get into a gun fight in these nightclub scenes. And so it was a routine every weekend, right, you know they, they'd come into town. They'd practice, rehearse. Show starts about eight or 9:00, right, goes to about midnight. You know all the cars crank up you know, blowing the horns on the way in, on the way out, right, and there was gunfire, and the evening was over. And you wait till next weekend, see who's coming to town. Listen to the radio during the week.”

Students at a Nashville Lunch Counter Sit-In

Stuart also shares his involvement in Nashville activism during his youth. He worked with civil rights giant, Congressman John Lewis and the head of the Nashvile branch of SNCC, Lester Mckinney, “So when they organized marches, they would start at Tennessee State, go down Jefferson Street, past Meharry and Fisk, pick up some more critical mass, and keep marching downtown. There wasn't a kid in those neighborhoods, they were all well populated neighborhoods, who didn't want to help out and do something. So we all kind of like became hangers on, right. If your parents told you to get home and leave that stuff alone, right, you would. If your parents were willing to let you do something, you'd do what you could beg them to let you do. So I asked my mother if I could go down to the student organizing office and help staple the placards on the little short wooden sticks. I'd do that. And I wanted to march. So the deal was, and John Lewis and Lester McKinney came to the house to assure my mom I'd be okay. That was most important. The deal was I could march from 26th and Jefferson Street to 18th and Jefferson Street. And that would be the part I could play. But at that point, I had to come home. You talking about the proudest little marcher. I was in the march and doing my part at my little young age, right. Going up Jefferson with all the big kids when they would go downtown and make a difference. Later on after the, the major marches had stopped and we began to do picket signs and picket lines and, and boycotts in the neighborhoods at some of the restaurants that wouldn't desegregate and the places that wouldn't hire black people, right. I participated in those activities as well. And, and that was great. So I got a chance to, to do a picket line at a couple of restaurants, including the one where I later proposed to my wife to marry me. Did picket line there and got that restaurant to integrate and hire black people and let them come in and eat.”

Jubilee Hall, Fisk University, Nashville Tennessee

Cheryl McKissack Felder is an architect and entrepreneur who founded her own construction management firm and architectural design company, she describes seeing civil rights leaders in her youth, “Yeah, I mean, it was really the, that was the center of all the sit-in activity. The Freedom Rides started out there, you know. That was like before you, that was when you born. I remember that. I remember the riots. My godfather was Avon Williams who was a civil rights attorney. I remember going to, you know, his son's birthday party, and we came out and a cross was burning in the yard. And we were probably about seven years old. I remember, you know, my father's [William McKissack] aunt at Fisk University in a telephone booth and bullets going all around and him having to go get her. And there was a curfew that was imposed. So everybody was to be home at dark, and I remember that night worrying about him. So I remember those days. Yeah, I remember my mother [HistoryMaker Leatrice McKissack] crying when [Reverend Dr.] Martin Luther King, [Jr.] was shot…And Mahalia Jackson. I remember her coming to town and I can't remember what it was for, but we went to it. It was at Fisk University, and I remember some riots breaking out at that event… I mean Stokely Carmichael [Kwame Ture], he would come to Fisk University, and my parents would definitely attend those things. I mean as far as in the later years, you know, Bill Cosby is--came to our home, [HistoryMaker] Vernon [E.] Jordan [Jr.].”

Plaque of Z. Alexander Looby who was an attorney, civil rights icon, city councilman, commissioner, and he started the first law school for Black students

Civil Rights activist Reverend James Bevel (1936-2008) led interfaith dialogues, sit-ins, and helped conceive the March on Washington. He describes the voter registration tactics in Nashville, “So we as college students and young people participated in rallying people to voter registration and out to vote. In Nashville [Tennessee], we had, that spring of '60 [1960], we was registering something in the neighborhood of 300 people a day because those people could register in Nashville. Before the movement, they seldom did. Like, when we were sitting-in, folks would come to the mass meeting and say okay, while we're negotiating, let's go out and do voter registration. So we would do voter registering every day as one of our strategies for building a power base, see, putting pressure on the elected officials… We did masses. The union came in. I forgot the name of the union now. One of the unions who had been specialized came in and help us set up a massive voter registration campaign: door-to-door, street-to-street, downtown. Nashville is like a hub city where all the--you don't have crosstown buses like you do in Chicago [Illinois]; you have all the buses come to a hub, to what is called the shelter. But about two blocks from the shelter was the county courthouse and you could go and register, so we'd go down during the day and just get folks--because all they do is sign their names, and so we would go down and register people and then we would do voter registration from the communities. So while we were doing sit-in movements, when we would have a lull, we would do voter registration, and we would get hundreds of people… It was the first city in the South that they voted a metropolitan government because some of the black folk in their city got registered. They had to change the boundaries of the Nashville city limits so it wouldn't have a black majority population (laughs)…So they had to go out and include the metropolitan area in the voting process…Because, see, after about '61 [1961], there was more black folks registered than white people because we got so many black folks registered, yeah. Yeah. [As a result]… you had two blacks--on the school board, there was an attorney, (unclear), was on the School Board, and on the City Council you had [Robert Emmett] Lillard was on the City Council and [Z. Alexander] Looby was on the City Council. So even when we had the sit-in movements, you had two black lawyers in the City Council and you had a black man lawyer on the School Board.”

Nashville holds rich cultural and civic memories for the people who called it home. Black culture and activism is Nashville history.

Citations:

Pamela Gunter-Smith (The HistoryMakers A2013.062), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 11, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 4, Pamela Gunter-Smith talks about her childhood neighborhoods

Barbara Bowles (The HistoryMakers A2002.098), interviewed by Larry Crowe, July 16, 2002, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 4, Barbara Bowles remembers her neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee during her childhood

Reginald Stuart (The HistoryMakers A2012.231), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 29, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 2, Reginald Stuart remembers listening to music at Club Baron in Nashville, Tennessee, pt. 1

Reginald Stuart (The HistoryMakers A2012.231), interviewed by Larry Crowe, August 29, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 3, Reginald Stuart recalls Civil Rights activism in Nashville, Tennessee during the early 1960s

Cheryl McKissack Felder (The HistoryMakers A2005.043), interviewed by Larry Crowe, February 9, 2005, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 10, Cheryl McKissack Felder remembers growing up in Nashville, Tennessee during the Civil Rights Movement

Reverend James Bevel (The HistoryMakers A2003.004), interviewed by Larry Crowe, January 14, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 4, story 8, James Bevel explains strategies for voter registration in Nashville and the outcome of the effort