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The Civil Rights Collection at the Nashville Public Library
72 Hours in…. is about how to get the most out of a short visit to a destination. If you know the “must sees,” “must dos” and more, your visit can be just as fun and fruitful as if you had a week to spend.
This time we’re exploring the Afrocentric side of Nashville!
Black Nashville
Nicknamed Music City USA, Nashville is best known as the home of Country music, and most likely perceived as encompassing not much else.
However, there are numerous areas of interest for African American residents and visitors, as the city possesses a very rich history beginning in 1748 with the first African American community.
Historical Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) in Nashville include Meharry Medical College, originally founded in 1876 as the Medical Department of Central Tennessee College of Nashville under the auspices of the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Tennessee State University (TSU), founded in 1912 and now encompassing a main campus located five minutes west of downtown, and the Avon Williams downtown campus near the State Capitol; and Fisk University, named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk of the Tennessee Freedmen’s Bureau at its founding just two years after Emancipation.
Speaking of Fisk, be sure to visit Jubilee Hall - home of the Fisk Jubilee Singers - whose worldwide singing tours saved the university from financial collapse in the 1870’s. The Jubilee Singers are credited with not only giving the city its original Nashville sound, but also establishing Nashville as a national and international center for Black religious music.
The headquarters of the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. makes it’s home in Nashville as well. Founded in 1886, it is the nation’s oldest and largest African American religious convention with an estimated 7.5 million members.
One of my favorite places in town and truly a “must-see and experience” is The Civil Rights Collection of the Nashville Public Library.
Opened in 2003, it is one of the finest collections of Civil Rights history in the country. The state-of-the-art room, designed to capture the drama and history of a time in the 1950s and 1960s when thousands of Nashvillians came together in a nonviolent campaign to eliminate racial segregation throughout the city, highlights numerous interesting elements.
A glass-enclosed audio/video area presents documentary films on a variety of Civil Rights history subjects. More than 100 significant milestones in Civil Rights movement history featured in timelines--covering both local and national events--are detailed on the library’s centerpiece, circular table, symbolic of the lunch counters that were popular gathering places in downtown Nashville in the days before fast-food chains became commonplace.
Numerous photographs illuminate the struggle for integration of public schools in 1957, the lunch counter sit-ins and the events of April 19, 1960 when nearly 4,000 people marched in silence to City Hall to protest the early morning bombing that partially destroyed the home of Black attorney and councilman Z. Alexander Looby, who defended many of the sit-in demonstrators.
Soul food galore
No visit to Nashville would be complete without a meal at B.B. King’s Blues Club.
Serving southern home cooking “just the way BB likes it,” the restaurant sits downtown in the heart of Nashville’s restaurant and club scene, and is one the three B.B.’s clubs in the country.
Bayou crab cakes, Tennessee catfish, drunken chicken, chicken fried chicken, a variety of po-boy sandwiches, cowboy rib eye steaks and more are just the beginning of the culinary offerings.
Nevertheless, it’s the music that draws both locals and visitors alike--seven days a week--to enjoy some of the best blues, jazz and rock from regional, national and Grammy nominated and award-winning artists.
The oldest minority-owned restaurant in Nashville is Swett’s.
For over 53 years the Swett family has been serving up some of the finest, southern, homestyle food in the country. Offered cafeteria style at two of their three locations (the third is in the Nashville airport), menu offerings include outstanding beef tips, grilled and BBQ pork ribs, BBQ chicken, turkey and dressing, turnip greens, macaroni and cheese, squash casserole, creamed potatoes, and okra. And the desserts? Unbelievable!
For a taste of the islands stop in the Jamaicaway Restaurant, located in the Nashville Farmer’s Market. Jamaicaway features delicious, authentic, healthy Jamaican cuisine and vegetarian fare such as callaloo, a variety of roti, ackee-n-saltfish, curry goat, tofu and veggie patties, jerk salmon and oxtails, coco bread and more. Jonny cake, rice-n-peas, fried plantain and collard greens are a few of the traditional sides.
Enjoy your 72 hour stay in Nashville!
More About:
Cultural Travel ·
Culinary Adventures ·
African American Heritage ·
Public Libraries ·
Nashville ·
Tennessee
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