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VIRGINIA The U.S. Civil Rights Trail is a KENTUCKY Locations on the collection of historic churches, MISSOURI U.S. Civil Rights Trail courthouses, schools, museums Nashville Clinton and other landmarks that played Memphis a pivotal role in advancing social NORTH CAROLINA justice in the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s. ARKANSAS Clayborn Temple Memphis Historic Beale Street District SOUTH CAROLINA Mason Temple Church of God in Christ MISSISSIPPI ALABAMA GEORGIA National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel Tennessee sites Embark on a journey of meaningful discovery WDIA Radio Station and memories, where the past will enrich the present and inspire the future. Memphis Clayborn Temple Nashville experience the sites that helped Historic Beale Street District Civil Rights Room at the define the settings of the American Mason Temple Church of God in Christ Nashville Public Library National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel Clark Memorial United civil rights story by visiting these 12 WDIA Radio Station Methodist Church historical Tennessee locations on Davidson County Courthouse the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. and the Witness Walls Tennessee has 12 stops along the nashville Fisk University U.S. Civil Rights Trail that tell the By combining the events, people, Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library Griggs Hall, American Baptist College stories of the brave people who, places, and stories that defined Clark Memorial United Methodist Church Woolworth on 5th through peaceful protests and the Movement, the trail connects Davidson County Courthouse and the Witness Walls legal actions, fought for their and commemorates, through Fisk University Clinton civil rights. Follow their footsteps immersive and educational travel Griggs Hall, American Baptist College through Memphis, Nashville and experiences, the stories that shifted Woolworth on 5th Clinton 12 Statue and Green the historically significant town McAdoo Cultural Center the course of history for our nation. of Clinton to learn the history of clinton WHAT HAPPENED HERE CHANGED THE THE WORLD. HERE CHANGED HAPPENED WHAT Tennessee’s role in the Civil Clinton 12 Statue and Green McAdoo Cultural Center Learn about other states’ sites on the For more information on each Rights Movement. U.S. Civil Rights Trail at civilrightstrail.com. of Tennessee’s trail sites, visit tncivilrightstrail.com. tncivilrightstrail.com National Civil Beale Street Mason Temple Rights Museum Clinton 12 Statue Clayborn Temple Historic District Church of God in Christ at the Lorraine Motel wdia radio and Green McAdoo Cultural Center 294 Hernando Street, Memphis Beale Street, Memphis 930 Mason Street, Memphis 450 Mulberry Street, Memphis 2650 Thousand Oaks Boulevard, Memphis 101 School Street, Clinton Clayborn Temple’s ties to the Civil Rights movement reached a pinnacle in Created in 1841, Beale Street is one of the most iconic streets in America. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his prophetic “Mountaintop” speech on See artifacts and learn the history of the Civil Rights Movement and human WDIA Radio is the first radio station in the country programmed entirely Learn the stories of the Clinton 12, the 12 black students who, in August 1968 when it became headquarters for the Memphis Sanitation Workers’ It began as a thriving area for commerce, musicians, Black-owned April 3, 1968, what would be the eve of his assassination. On that night, rights movements worldwide. The Museum has memorialized the balcony for the African American community. The station aired on June 7, 1947, 1956, courageously integrated a public high school in the segregated Strike. Starting in February 1968, nearly 1,000 sanitation workers marched businesses and was home to Ida B. Wells’ anti-segregationist newspaper. thousands filled the sanctuary to hear Dr. King as he came to Memphis to of the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. King lost his life, and also preserved Room featuring African American radio personalities and brought awareness to South for the first time. Step inside a 1950s classroom and see what life was twice daily from the church to City Hall carrying signs declaring “I AM Four locations are significant to the Civil Rights Movement: Historical Daisy support the striking sanitation workers. To inspire the people, he famously 306 where Dr. King stayed the night before his assassination. History a relatively new market of listeners. The station’s influence and popularity like under “Jim Crow” laws. Follow the chronological story of the school’s A MAN.” In the evenings, strikers, their families, and supporters filled the Theatre/Randle Catron Interpretive Center, Withers Collection Museum & said he has “been to the mountaintop” and had “seen the Promised Land.” dating from 1619 to 2000 is shared through videos, text, images, and reached 10% of the African-American population in the U.S. Music legends desegregation with life-size photographs and narratives. Twelve bronzed sanctuary for inspirational speeches. Tours are available by appointment. Gallery, First Baptist Beale Street Church and Robert R. Church Park. These prophetic statements were part of Dr. King’s last speech. multimedia elements. The Museum is open every day except Tuesdays. such as B.B. King and Rufus Thomas got their start by working at WDIA. statues stand in front of the center, which is free and open to the public. Credit: Danielle Atkins Davidson County Civil Rights Room Clark Memorial Courthouse Griggs Hall at the Nashville Public Library United Methodist Church and the Witness Walls Fisk University at American Baptist College Woolworth on 5th 615 Church Street, Nashville 1014 14th Avenue North, Nashville 1 Public Square, Nashville 1000 17th Avenue North, Nashville 1800 Baptist World Center Drive, Nashville 221 5th Avenue North, Nashville The materials exhibited here capture a time when thousands of African Travel to 14th Avenue North in downtown Nashville to discover the church In April of 1960, after the bombing of the home of Z. Alexander Looby, Fisk University, founded in 1866, is the oldest university in Nashville. Students Griggs Hall, the first building constructed on the campus of American The Woolworth building is a registered historic site as part of downtown American citizens in Nashville sparked a nonviolent challenge to racial that served as a meeting site for many civil rights efforts. James Lawson 2,500 protestors marched to the Courthouse. There, they met Mayor Ben were instrumental in many of the sit-in demonstrations throughout the city. Baptist College was a seminary for Black students. It became the center Nashville’s Fifth Avenue Historic District. One of the original “five and segregation in the city and across the South. The room archives stories hosted nonviolent protest workshops in 1958 at the church and Dr. Martin West, who conceded that segregation was immoral and the city’s lunch Learn about the university’s history and its famous alumni including for non-violent training and activity in the Nashville area, especially the dime” stores, F. W. Woolworth became the site of some of the first lunch with oral histories and firsthand photographs, but also provides a current Luther King Jr. had the Southern Christian Leadership Conference annual counters should be desegregated. Next to the Courthouse, the Witness Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Thurgood Marshall (the first African American Justice Nashville sit-in program. Griggs Hall was restored in 2015 and is listed in the counter sit-ins during the 1960s. Visitors can enjoy soul food and live music voice and venue for open dialogue and discovery. Visitors are invited to meeting there in 1961. Walls tell stories of the events and people who made history. Walk among of the U.S. Supreme Court) and U.S. Representative John Lewis. You can National Register of Historic Places. Tours are available by appointment. grounded in the rock n’ roll and soul of the 1950s and ‘60s. It resembles the schedule a guided experience of the space or enjoy a self-led tour. the walls to see school desegregation, marches, Freedom Rides and more. also visit the extensive art collection in the Carl Van Vechten Gallery. former Woolworths and its lunch counter..
Recommended publications
  • African American Civil Rights Grant Program

    African American Civil Rights Grant Program

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  • Memphis Voices: Oral Histories on Race Relations, Civil Rights, and Politics

    Memphis Voices: Oral Histories on Race Relations, Civil Rights, and Politics

    Memphis Voices: Oral Histories on Race Relations, Civil Rights, and Politics By Elizabeth Gritter New Albany, Indiana: Elizabeth Gritter Publishing 2016 Copyright 2016 1 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..3 Chapter 1: The Civil Rights Struggle in Memphis in the 1950s………………………………21 Chapter 2: “The Ballot as the Voice of the People”: The Volunteer Ticket Campaign of 1959……………………………………………………………………………..67 Chapter 3: Direct-Action Efforts from 1960 to 1962………………………………………….105 Chapter 4: Formal Political Efforts from 1960 to 1963………………………………………..151 Chapter 5: Civil Rights Developments from 1962 to 1969……………………………………195 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………..245 Appendix: Brief Biographies of Interview Subjects…………………………………………..275 Selected Bibliography………………………………………………………………………….281 2 Introduction In 2015, the nation commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, which enabled the majority of eligible African Americans in the South to be able to vote and led to the rise of black elected officials in the region. Recent years also have seen the marking of the 50th anniversary of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment, and Freedom Summer, when black and white college students journeyed to Mississippi to wage voting rights campaigns there. Yet, in Memphis, Tennessee, African Americans historically faced few barriers to voting. While black southerners elsewhere were killed and harassed for trying to exert their right to vote, black Memphians could vote and used that right as a tool to advance civil rights. Throughout the 1900s, they held the balance of power in elections, ran black candidates for political office, and engaged in voter registration campaigns. Black Memphians in 1964 elected the first black state legislator in Tennessee since the late nineteenth century.
  • The Civil Rights Movement Found Its Epicenter Early in 1968 in Memphis

    The Civil Rights Movement Found Its Epicenter Early in 1968 in Memphis

    Shall We Overcome?: Songs of Protest in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968 Philip Alexander Kovacik Introduction Memphis: The Macrocosm For A Black Movement The Civil Rights Movement found its epicenter early in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. A brutal system perfected under the politics of plantation paternalism plagued the city with a firestorm of racial divisiveness hell-bent upon societal serfdom for the residential African-American populace.1 The African-American community was a historically marginalized collective in the distribution hub of Jim Crow’s mightiest product, King Cotton. It was in this ethos of racial antediluvian understanding that black sanitation workers endured unnecessary squalor and hopelessly obtuse and dated moral and social devaluation. Forced to work for a pittance of their few-and-far between white counterparts, the African-American sanitation workers of Memphis sought to unionize in the name of moral justice and residual economic prosperity. This invalidated microcosm, representing some of the cities most marginalized African Americans, performed a necessary civil service, and in turn received the satisfaction of disparity, poverty, and social disenfranchisement. A strike was looming at the dawn of 1968. With the providential support of national labor representatives, national civil rights figureheads and savants alike, the Civil Rights Movement buttressed a call for proper labor practice. The predominantly 1 The marginalized in 1968 are for the purposes of this examination, those affected by the sanitation workers strike. African-American sanitation collective ultimately, albeit indirectly, triggered a wellspring of necessitated civil action. No longer were the cries of the urban poor for the rights to succeed on a playing field of socioeconomic equality, but rather for the recognition of total parity and divinely ordained equality with the dominant white social hierarchy.
  • Historic Name: Mason Temple, Church of £Od in Christ Other Name/Site Number: Church of God in Christ National Temple and World Headquarters

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    NFS Form 10-900 0MB No. 1024-0018 (Rev. 8-86) —— • .-,-, United States Department of the Interior ; •- National Park Service L NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES REGISTRATION FORM 1. Name of Property historic name: Mason Temple, Church of £od in Christ other name/site number: Church of God in Christ National Temple and World Headquarters 2. Location street & number: 958 Mason Street not for publication: N/A city/town: Memphis vicinity: N/A state: TN county: Shelby code: 157 zip code: 38126 3. Classification Ownership of Property: Private Category of Property: Buildings Number of Resources within Property: Contributing Noncontributing 7 -0- buildings -0- -0- sites -0- -0- structures -0- -0- objects 7 -0- Total Number of contributing resources previously listed in the National Register: N/A Name of related multiple property listing: N/A As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1986, as amended, I hereby certify that this _x_ nomination ___ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property _x_ meets ___ does not meet the National Register Criteria. __ See continuation sheet. Signature of certifyin official Date? Deputy SHPO, Tennessee istorical Commission State or Federal agency and bureau In my opinion, the property ___ meets ___ does not meet the National Register criteria. __ See continuation sheet. Signature of commenting or other official Date 5. National Park Service Certification that this property is: entered in the National Register __ See continuation sheet, determined eligible for the National Register __ See continuation sheet, determined not eligible for the National Register removed from the National Register other (explain): _____________ Signature of Keeper Date of Action 6.
  • Select Preservation Priorities for FY 2021 Appropriations

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    THE PRESERVATION BUDGET Select Preservation Priorities for FY 2021 Appropriations February 2020 The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded nonprofit organization that works to save America’s historic places. From our headquarters in Washington, D.C. and our field offices, we take direct, on-the-ground action when historic sites are threatened. Our work helps build vibrant, sustainable communities. We facilitate public participation in the presevation of sites, buildings, and objects of national significance or interest. We advocate with governments to save America’s heritage and we strive to create a cultural legacy that is as diverse as the nation itself so that all of us can take pride in our part of the American story. For more information, visit SavingPlaces.org. ON THE COVER: CHACO CULTURE NATIONAL HISTORICAL PARK, COURTESY NATIONAL PARK SERVICE; WOMEN FROM THE MINNESOTA BRANCH OF THE CONGRESSIONAL UNION FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN FRONT OF THE NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS IN 1917. PHOTO COURTESY HARRIS & EWING/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE IN TOPEKA, KANSAS, COURTESY MIDWEST NATIONAL PARKS THE NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION is pleased to publish our second annual report recommending funding levels for select federal preservation programs. These programs have a significant impact on the stewardship of historic resources in every state and congressional district. Preservationists have long advocated for the Historic Preservation Fund (HPF), including funding for state and tribal historic preservation officers. These offices implement the nation’s key preservation programs on the ground, including evaluating the impacts of federal projects, reviewing tax credit projects, and other essential activities.
  • U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS TRAIL JOURNEY TENNESSEE Nashville

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    U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS TRAIL JOURNEY TENNESSEE Nashville Memphis Nashville - Memphis (3 hrs. 7 mins.) The U.S. Civil Rights Trail spans 14 states, features more than 100 sites and highlights the country’s civil rights story. Your journey along the trail begins in Memphis, Tennessee. Mason Temple Church of God in Christ Memphis, TN DAY 1 – MEMPHIS Clayborn Temple > Mason Temple Church of God Clayborn Temple Mason Temple Church of God in Christ Start your civil rights history journey at This is the site where Dr. King delivered his Clayborn Temple. Named after African prophetic “Mountaintop” speech on the eve of Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Jim his assassination – April 3, 1968. On that night, Clayborn, Clayborn Temple was an important 3,000 people demanded to hear Dr. King as hub for organizational meetings for the Civil he came to Memphis to support the 1,300 Rights Movement in the region and served as striking sanitation workers who met regularly a popular place for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at this church. Unfair working conditions and to visit and give speeches. Clayborn Temple poor pay led to the strike and the response of a was also instrumental in the sanitation court injunction that banned further protests. workers’ strike and was the starting point for Dr. King hoped their march would overturn the solidarity march beginning February 1968. the court order. To inspire the people, Dr. King Protestors marched from the church to City famously said, “...And I’ve seen the promised Hall carrying signs that read “I AM A MAN.” land.
  • The Georgia State University World Heritage I

    The Georgia State University World Heritage I

    U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT SITES A POTENTIAL SERIAL NOMINATION FOR WORLD HERITAGE [The Georgia State University World Heritage Initiative is seeking feedback from audience participants in the July 30, 2020 US/ICOMOS Webinar on this working draft narrative expressing the Statement of Outstanding Universal Value and Justification under World Heritage Criteria (ii) and (vi) of the potential serial nomination of U. S. Civil Rights Movement Sites being developed for potential inscription on the World Heritage List. Comments may be sent to [email protected]. Thank you for your consideration.] SUGGESTED COMPONENTS OF THE POTENTIAL SERIAL NOMINATION At these exemplary Civil Rights Movement Sites from across the southeastern United States, nonviolent protests over racial segregation in the public sphere culminated in extraordinary events of global significance that forced open the American system to all its citizens regardless of race, color, religion, sex or national origin and represented to the world the universal principles of freedom, democracy, and equality. The property consists of a suggested thirteen complementary sites from among the more than three hundred historic places across the nation associated with the postwar social movement to end legal white supremacy. Each of the sites bears unique testimony to the African American freedom struggle over racial discrimination, either in segregated schools, separate public accommodations, or the electoral process. While outwardly no different than the thousands of other mundane sites once segregated across the region, the suggested thirteen components of the potential serial nomination became catalysts for change because of the events associated with them that turned these otherwise nondescript churches, schools, houses, and businesses into internationally-recognized crucibles of race reform.
  • The Memphis Sanitation Strike, 1968

    The Memphis Sanitation Strike, 1968

    The Memphis sanitation strike, 1968 A short history of the 1968 strike of 1300 African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, during which Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. The night before his assassination in April 1968, Martin Luther King told a group of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee: “We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point in Memphis. We’ve got to see it through” (King, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” 217). King believed the struggle in Memphis exposed the need for economic equality and social justice that he hoped his Poor People’s Campaign would highlight nationally. On 1 February 1968, two Memphis garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. Twelve days later, frustrated by the city’s response to the latest event in a long pattern of neglect and abuse of its black employees, 1,300 black men from the Memphis Department of Public Works went on strike. Sanitation workers, led by garbage-collector-turned-union- organizer, T. O. Jones, and supported by the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Jerry Wurf, demanded recognition of their union, better safety standards, and a decent wage. The union, which had been granted a charter by AFSCME in 1964, had attempted a strike in 1966, but it failed, in large part because workers were unable to arouse the support of Memphis’s religious community or middle class. Conditions for black sanitation workers worsened when Henry Loeb became mayor in January 1968.
  • The Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike Movement

    The Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike Movement

    The Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike Movement The Memphis Sanitation strike of 1968 was one of the greatest events in human history . This strike was led by black sanitation workers who were tired of human exploitation, economic oppression, and racism. Its history existed long before the 1960’s too. During the 1930’s, black workers and others (in groups like the CIO or the Congress of Industrial Organizations) fought for equality and labor rights. Their efforts were stymied by the efforts of white racists and business reactionary forces who wanted no recognition of a public union. Also, black people throughout America (not just in Memphis) suffered racism and even murder by bigots. Many people, who traveled into Memphis, came from the Deep South like Mississippi. Memphis is known for resources based on the river, music, various industries, and other diverse displays of beautiful culture. Memphis back then was also known for the evil of Jim Crow apartheid. This strike was the last campaign of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The victory of the strike unfortunately came after his assassination in April 4, 1968. Yet, we remember his legacy and we will always remember the men and the women who stood up for workers’ rights . The civil rights movement wasn’t just made up of black people. There were many white people, Hispanic people, Asian people, etc. who fought in favor of equality and justice for black people too. Likewise, black people have always had a leadership position in our black liberation movement too. I want to make that point clear.
  • Memphis, Tennessee Is Located in the Extreme South West Cor- Ner of The

    Memphis, Tennessee Is Located in the Extreme South West Cor- Ner of The

    6) 61-'1- r117, ICtIcC% 12 x. --,vs ,tt. 1"711. V1L 11,1:101).111., ebruarj: 12 -April It,, 1960. 11,4 L% P1110, TEIVIs1ESSLE. Memphis, Tennessee is located in the extreme South West cor- ner of the Slate of Tennessee bordering Northern Mississippi to the South and divided from Arkansas by the Mississippi River. In 1965 the population cy the City of Memphis was 541,900, ana the MetropoWan population of the City ana its environs was 629_900. There are 178 square miles within the City Limits. The racial breakdown of the population according to most recent Special Census Reports is tint within the City Limits there is a uee popula- tion of approx. u2. 7 % and a Negro population of approx. 37. 3%. ECUNOM Y. Memphis is a well known cotton center located in one of the world's richest cotton producing areas. More than one third of the cotton produced in the U.S. is bought and sold each year on Front Street in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis is also the world's largest hardwood lumber market, and Memphis is surrounded by rich and productive agricultural hinterlands, and is the Chief Rail Center between St. Louis and New Orleans and for more than a century has been a major distribution center. In recent years as well there has been con- siderable Industrial development in the Memphis area. 3) RACE RELATIONS. During the Administration of the late John F. Kennedy, Memphis was cited jar the excellent progress it had made in race relations during a period when race relations were just beginning to dominate the National News.
  • “A Church Where Jesus Is Real”: Race, Religiosity And

    “A Church Where Jesus Is Real”: Race, Religiosity And

    “A Church Where Jesus Is Real”: Race, Religiosity and the Legacies of Protest Activism in the Church of God in Christ, 1968-1989 By Thom Finley Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts In the Department of History at Brown University Thesis Advisor: Françoise Hamlin April 4, 2014 2 3 In memory of Bob Paine, 1921-2013. Never just another fish in the sea. 4 Table of Contents Introduction 5 Chapter One: “What’s Mine Is Yours” COGIC Political History, Protest and the Passing of the Guard 18 Chapter Two: Building Jerusalem Power, Property and Racial Justice in Memphis 45 Chapter Three: Dreaming of a Church Without Rebellion The Saints and Cultural Politics 1968-1989 70 Chapter Four: Toward a Pentecostal Theology of Liberation COGIC Higher Education, Marginal Voices and the Intellectual Legacies of 1968 96 Conclusion: Salvation, Testimony, Freedom 116 Bibliography 121 5 Introduction In March 1968, mere weeks before his death, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood in front of striking sanitation workers and their supporters at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. At a pulpit surrounded by banners bearing Bible verses and the faces of long- dead ministers, he began the first of a series of speeches that would culminate fourteen days later in his famous and final “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” address. King’s words in Memphis encompassed Biblical parables, boycott strategies, and stirring exhortations to nonviolent direct action. On that first March day, however, the preacher began with a simple celebration of black religious unity. “We have Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, members of the Church of God in Christ and members of the Church of Christ in God,” he proclaimed, greeting the packed crowd in the 3,000-seat Christian Temple.
  • Clayborn Temple

    Clayborn Temple

    Steve Jones National Treasures Clayborn Temple Location: Memphis, Tennessee A stately Romanesque Revival church just south of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, Clayborn Temple began life with a white congregation in 1892 as Second Presbyterian. In 1949, the church was sold to an African-American congregation, who changed the property’s name to Clayborn Temple in honor of a local African Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop. During the Sanitation Workers’ Strike of 1968, civil rights and labor activists organized together inside Clayborn Temple. The “I AM A MAN” signs created by the congregation’s pastor with his own printing press have since become a universal symbol for human rights and human dignity. Today, the “I AM A MAN” signs remain relevant everywhere, from protests close to home in Ferguson to halfway around the world in Egypt. Clayborn Temple closed in 1999 and fell into disrepair, but it has since reopened. The building hosts special events like weddings and live performances, is once again home to a congregation, and is also a meeting space for local and national organizations. Most importantly, the community members and preservation organizations who have kept Clayborn Temple alive are dedicated to preserving its legacy as the site where activists first organized around the idea that poverty and race were inextricably bound. "I AM A MAN" When it was constructed in 1892, Second Presbyterian was the largest church in the United States south of the Ohio River. Its defining features included monumental stained glass windows and a huge pipe organ, purchased for $8,400. These features were a rarity in churches at the time.