A copy photograph of an 1890's gymnastics class of young female students at Ward's Seminary for Young Ladies in Nashville, Tennessee. The photograph shows Mary Louise and Sadie Warner (later Mrs. William Mallison and Mrs. George Frazier) on the gym...
A photograph of A. Z. Kelley and some of the legal team from Kelley v. Board of Education of Nashville in September 1955. Following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the Supreme Court issued Brown II, ordering that schools to desegregate...
A photograph of Clark Memorial Methodist Church, Nashville's oldest African American Church. Located now at 1015 Fourteenth Avenue North, Clark Memorial has had several name and location changes throughout the years. The congregation came into...
A photograph of Cleveland Street Baptist Church located at 608 Cleveland Street in Nashville, Tennessee. This church was founded in 1889 as a small mission known as North Street Baptist Church. It was started by the Reverend William Bailey in a...
A photograph of Eighth Street Missionary Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Built by Reverend R.L. Watson in 1945, this church building initially housed First Emmanuel Church. The Eighth Street Baptist Church was organized in 1913. In the...
Excerpt from an oral history interview with Leigh Spruill conducted on May 26, 2011 by Annette Pilcher as part of the Flood 2010 Digital History Project. Reverend Leigh Spruill, rector of St. George’s Episcopal Church, describes the flooding of...
A photograph of the Family of Faith Church located at 106 Joyner Avenue in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the cornerstone, the building was first used for Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, whose congregation was organized July 8, 1937 by...
A photograph of First Baptist Church Capitol Hill. Originally called First Colored Baptist Church, this African American church was founded by Reverend Nelson Merry in 1865. The church sprang from the First Colored Baptist Mission, a group of...
A photograph of First Baptist Church East Nashville. This African American church was founded in 1866 by the Reverend Randall B. Vandavall, a slave born on March 23, 1832 at Neely's Bend. In the early years, the church was called Vandavall's...
First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, was organized in the 1840's when African American members of the First Baptist Church decided to start their own separate church under the leadership of Pastor Nelson Merry. The first meeting house, erected in...
A photograph of Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ located at 1101 Jackson Street in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the cornerstone the church was built in 1916 as Jackson Street Baptist Church, and remodeled in 1941 by Reverend William...
Dedicated in July of 1906, Monroe Street United Methodist Church began as an offspring of the North High Street Methodist Church. The building was designed by Reverend James E. Woodward, and Reverend E. M. Harrell served as the first pastor in the...
A photograph of Mt. Lebanon Missionary Baptist Church located at 1423 Fourth Avenue South in Nashville, Tennessee. This church was built in 1906 as Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church and reestablished in 1955 under the administration of Reverend Joe...
On March 10, 1887, the first permanent house of worship for Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church was dedicated at 908 Cedar Street. The church was first conceived by Reverend R. T. Huffman and a number of his followers. Succeeding Reverend Huffman...
Excerpts from an interview with Alice Smith Risby conducted on 05 April 2007 by John Egerton as part of the Nashville Public Library's Civil Rights Oral History Project. Risby, wife of Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, Sr., discusses her daughter's...
Excerpts from an interview with civil rights movement participant Robert "Bobby" Cain, Jr., and his wife, Margo Cain, conducted on 13 June 2007 by Gwen Smith. Cain, one of the "Clinton 12," was the first African-American student to graduate from...
A captioned photo from the Nashville Times (1940), about Reverend W. S. Marshall, “pastor of the West Nashville Cumberland Presbyterian Church takes his hat off to his friends and his church members who, on Christmas Day, presented him with a new...
A photograph of student demonstrators, in front of the previously segregated Post House Restaurant located inside the Greyhound Bus Terminal, 6th Avenue and Commerce Street, Nashville, Tennessee, March 3, 1960. Led by Student Nonviolent...
A photograph of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Kelly Miller Smith at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, April 21, 1960, preparing to speak to an audience of over 4000 following the bombing of the home of prominent civil rights...
A photograph of Coretta Scott King, Reverend Kelly Miller Smith and Mrs. D. Conrad Gandy at First Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, October 20, 1958. Mrs. King addressed the group at a Women's Day program at First Baptist Church, 8th Avenue...