Monuments, Empires and Resistance wins Society of American Archaeology book award

Chilean natives resisted Spanish conquest for more than 300 years

From Vanderbilt University:

Anthropologist Tom D. Dillehay's book Monuments, Empires and Resistance has received the Society of American Archaeology's highest book award for 2008.

In the book, Dillehay, who is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, examines the methods that the Araucanian people of southern Chile used to resist Spanish dominance for more than 300 years.

In 1550, when the Conquistador Pedro de Valdivia attempted to conquer southern Chile, he ran into stiff opposition from the scattered population of the Araucanians who had successfully resisted Incan conquest. Before disease and fighting reduced their numbers, the Araucanians earned the nickname of the Apache of South America by defeating Valdivia and his followers and nearly capturing Santiago. Subsequently, the Spanish pushed the resisters into a forest region south of the Bio-Bio River, which remained the boundary between the two peoples for three centuries. It wasn't until the late 1800's that the Chilean army defeated the Araucanians and settled them on reservations farther to the south.

Dillehay's book draws on 30 years of anthropological, archaeological and archival research to investigate the manner in which the Araucanians successfully resisted the Spanish and actually flourished in the process, including their use of sacred monuments to help form widespread alliances and adoption of the use of horses in battle.

Image credit: Patricio Valenzuela. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Labels: chile, education, history

"Here without authority" once applied to "free Negroes" in Nashville

WKRN reported here that the U.S. Border Patrol is recruiting in Nashville this week and is particularly interested in African-Americans, acknowledging that only 1.5% of 16,000 agents are African-American, and of those, only eight are women.

At the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church, the comment was rightly made that "because it's a federal agency it should represent the population as far as who they hire."

There is no mention, however, of the irony of Nashville African-Americans telling people to stay out, especially in light of

• the Nashville sit-ins, in which African-Americans were arrested for going where they were told it was illegal for them to be, with then-Mayor Ben West saying,

  As God is my helper, the law is going to be enforced in Nashville;

• this comment made in Nashville at the 1871 State Convention of the Colored Citizens of Tennessee:

  But we will gladly hail all voluntary free labor to elevate the laborer, whether from Europe, Asia, Africa or the West Indies, and extend a brother hand to secure him in his liberty the right to his toil and to uphold this government upon equality....;

• and this 1856 Davidson County resolution ordering magistrates and constables in each civil district to

  serve legal notice on all free Negroes within such district to leave the state, who are here without authority.

Photo by cobalt. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Labels: history, justice, statistics

"As widely known as that of any other living man in the Old World or in the New"

"He ought to be hanged for making so many attempts, causing so much bloodshed and never succeeding"

April 19 auction includes Walker portrait and related books, letters

The Saturday, April 19, auction of items from the estate of Margaret Lindsley Warden features a portrait of once-famous Nashvillian William Walker.

In the years leading up to the U.S. Civil War, Walker went from being a Nashville schoolboy to claiming the office of President in both Mexico and Nicaragua and making enemies of entire nations and even Cornelius Vanderbilt (see this article in the Vanderbilt Register).

Walker was the subject of this sentence written by the New York Times in 1857:

The name of William Walker is, by this time, as widely known as that of any other living man in the Old World or in the New.

and this sentence, also by the New York Times, in 1860:

If he be a brigand, and an enemy of the human race, as most civilized people now consider him, he has merited the gallows a dozen times over for divers[e] robberies, murders and piracies; and if he be a hero and philanthropist, he ought to be hanged for making so many attempts, causing so much bloodshed and never succeeding.

as well as this sentence by Nicaraguan poet Ruben Dario in 1912:

The defense against the famous Yankee has remained as one of the most brilliant pages of the history of the five Central American republics.

Walker's history is commemorated by this Nashville historical marker, a picture under this Wikipedia article for the original meaning of the word "filibuster," and a 1987 Ed Harris movie called "Walker," which featured the tag line, "Before Rambo... Before Oliver North..."

From the Tennessean:

The upcoming auction is scheduled in Knoxville in conjunction with three other estate auctions, Eberling said. Among Warden's family treasures to be sold are also a 1505 book from the Lindsleys' family book collection, a portrait of William Walker — one of Nashville's most colorful residents and president of the Republic of Nicaragua in the mid-1850s — family jewelry and silver.

Jim Hoobler, senior curator of art and architecture at the Tennessee State Museum, said he hopes some of the items find a home in the downtown museum.

"She's probably the last in a line of great families," said Hoobler, who knew Warden since the 1970s.

"This is history of Nashville. Our hope here is that we can acquire some of the important items of this collection like the William Walker portrait. These sort of things need to be in public collections where everybody can look at them, not in someone's living room with only one person looking at it."

From the auction description:

Important portrait of William Walker, "The Grey Eyed Man of Destiny", by Nashville artist, George Dury (1817-1894).
The painting is signed on the back, "Dury 1858".
Oil/gouache on paper.
This painting had previously been attributed to artist Washington Cooper in John Edwin Woodrow's book, "John Berrien Lindsley" (illustrated on page 85).

William Walker was a physician, lawyer, and journalist. A Nashvillian, Walker was the only Tennessee born president of another country, the Republic of Nicaragua.

At age 14, Walker graduated from the University of Nashville. He was then awarded a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania at age 19. He became qualified to practice law in New Orleans in 1847 and later became editor of the New Orleans Crescent. In 1848, he became the editor of the San Francisco Herald.

The "manifest destiny" vision of the time reflected Walker ambitions. In California, He began the efforts of organizing a filibustering expedition to conquer Lower California and the State of Sonora. He invaded Mexico in 1853 and proclaimed himself President of Lower California, violating U.S. neutrality laws. Later in 1853, Walker organized a small expedition of men to conquer Nicaragua. Within five months, he was made commander in chief of the new coalition provisional government of Nicaragua. In 1856, William Walker was elected as the President of Nicaragua. In the summer of 1856, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, and San Salvador declared war on Nicaragua.

Cornelius Vanderbilt viewed Walker as a threat to his American Transit Company in Nicaragua and aligned Costa Ricans against him, forcing him to surrender to U.S. Naval Authorities. In 1857, Walker planned his return to Nicaragua with a force of 240 volunteers. Elements of the U.S. Navy demanded his surrender for violating U.S. neutrality acts. Walker was brought back to the U.S. where President James Buchanan and several Senators castigated him for his filibustering activities. Walker became bolstered by a wave of Southern support and unsuccessfully attempted subsequent expeditions to Nicaragua.

In 1860, The blockade maintained by British and American cruisers in the Caribbean forced Walker to take another route to Nicaragua through the east coast of Honduras. He was pursued by a large force of Hondurans and a British war ship. After surrendering to a British captain, Walker and his men were turned over to the Honduran authorities. Walker was given a trial and executed by firing squad on September 12th, 1860.

Note - William Walker was a close friend of Dr. John Berrien Lindsley, and this is the only portrait known painted from life of him. Original frame. Condition - very good condition for age, small tear to upper margin. Dimensions sight 7 1/2" x 9 1/2", frame 13 1/4" x 16 1/4". Circa 1858. Lindsley Warden estate.

Note - Nashville artist, Friedrich Julius George Dury was born in Wurzburg, Bavaria and exhibited at the Munich art Association. He arrived in Nashville in 1850 and painted several prominent Tennesseans including Felix Grundy and Civil War officers including General P.G.T. Beauregard, General William Rosecrans, General George Thomas, Governor Brownlow. He also did bust portraits of Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

Additional items with this lot - Four books related to William Walker: "The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire, 1854-1861" by Robert E. May, 1973 (signed and inscribed to Margaret Lindsley Warden), "Destiny and Glory" by Edward S. Wallace, 1957 (ex-library copy), and "El Filibustero" by Clinton Rollins (paperback, 1976), with author's signature and inscription to Margaret Lindsley Warden, which reads "The first volume of a set to be enriched by her generous contribution of Walker's letters to Dr. Lindsley (which will be reproduced in a succeeding volume) -- with cordial greetings from the author.", and "Freebooters must die: The Life and Death of William Walker.." by Frederick Rosengarten.

Additional items - a period photo showing two soldiers in a Central American setting standing in front of a fortified building with sandbags surrounding it. Stamped on the back, "MI BOHIO CIENFUEGOS".

Additional item - an eight page letter dated March 1872 Nashville written by J.C. Thompson in which Thompson gives a biographical summary of Walker's life to Scribner's Monthly, New York.

Last item - a letter from Nicaragua by Dr. Alejandro Bolanos Geyer in 1974 transcribing and translating to Spanish articles written by William Walker.

Labels: events, history, immigrants, mexico, nicaragua

U.S. doors were closed

"Assist in the transportation of 2,500 of the neediest refugees to South America and other countries"

Vanderbilt University Chancellor James H. Kirkland was one of two Nashvillians and one hundred Christian Americans who signed a letter seeking public support for Christian refugees from Nazi Germany, according to an article in the December 21, 1936 New York Times. The funds raised would be used to send non-Jewish German refugees to "South America and other countries". The letter implies that Jewish refugees were to be taken care of by Jewish Americans, by offering this bit of praise: "The response of the Jews in America to the needs of their German brethren sets a heroic example for us to follow."

Why the letter would say both "the number of Christian refugees is not yet so large as to prove a serious burden upon Christians in the United States" but at the same time support their relocation outside the United States and not immigration reform to the U.S. is a nuance not explained by the article.

Perhaps the growing U.S. restrictions against German immigration were seen as unchangeable status quo, or a necessity to ensure U.S. self-protection. See below.

This 2007 Times article explains how national security fears shut down America's legal immigration even indirectly related to Germans: "By June of 1941, no one with close relatives still in Germany was allowed into the United States because of suspicions that the Nazis could use them to blackmail refugees into clandestine cooperation."

According to the 2007 article, one of the targets and victims of that national security policy, and the tight immigration controls even before 1941, was Anne Frank. Her father Otto Frank applied for U.S. visas in 1938 and 1941 and was denied both times.

An excerpt of the 1936 article is pictured in the right-hand column of this post.

Labels: history, immigrants, south america

At Nashville in 1871, the State Convention of the Colored Citizens of Tennessee tucks a message to newcomers inside a memo to Congress and the Presidents

"Decoyed to do faithful labor"

"If they come and voluntarily sink down deeper in oppression... we will gladly... extend a brother hand"

The Memorial to Congress and the President of the United States, Adopted at the State Convention of Colored Men

...

LABOR

As the colored citizens in Middle and West Tennessee, are largely the majority of every other class, of laborers more especially in agriculture without some means to secure to them their earnings, a sadder state of affairs awaits us. With but few exceptions this class of laborers are decoyed to do faithful labor in the rural districts, some on the promise of a share of the crop and some for wages, but so soon as the crop is made the employer frames some excuse and falls out with the laborer and he is forced to leave his crop, and abandon his wages, by the terror of Kuklux, who in all cases, sympathies with the white employers. The courts of justice yield no redress in the State. The rebel press are constantly misrepresenting the facts, and that we are cheated. While we thus have no protection, we will warn all imigrants, German, Irish and Chinese, that we are unjustly delt by and tell them promptly of our treatment and if they come and voluntarily sink down deeper in oppression, so mote it be. But we will gladly hail all voluntary free labor to elevate the laborer, whether from Europe, Asia, Africa or the West Indies, and extend a brother hand to secure him in his liberty the right to his toil and to uphold this government upon equality....

*At the time of the Colored Citizens convention in 1871, the U.S. immigration policy was still "open borders," as it had been since the country's founding. As of 1862, American vessels were prohibited from carrying Chinese immigrants to U.S. soil, but otherwise the borders were wide open, and there was no such thing as an "illegal immigrant." Only in 1875 did Congress start denying admission to people wanting to come to America - and even then, it was just the criminals and prostitutes who were blacklisted.

Sources: Proceedings of the State Convention of Colored Citizens held in Nashville, Family Research Group, Google Answers

Labels: business, history, immigrants, justice

"The fabric of America"

If you know of a Hispanic Nashvillian who has participated in StoryCorps or plans to participate, please send a story tip to the editor.

This fall, the Nashville Public Library became only the second institution in the nation to host a "StoryBooth," an outpost of StoryCorps, the award-winning national project that encourages Americans to listen to each other by sharing the stories of their lives in sound. Select interviews gathered at StoryBooths — small freestanding recording studios placed in public spaces across the country — are broadcast on National Public Radio (NPR). The interviews also added to the StoryCorps archive at American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., building an oral history of America.

According to this Nashville Scene story, StoryCorps is looking for personal tales from different demographics:

Jim Havron, the Nashville Public Library’s liaison with StoryCorps, is keenly aware of the need to record stories from outside the typically white, affluent public radio demographic: “We very much wish to include all groups of people. We’re making a special effort through community outreach to involve minorities, low-income folks and the elderly.”

There is a specific community outreach effort named The Griot Initiative, for example, to capture the stories of African-Americans.

In a press release, Nashville Public Library director Donna Nicely described Nashville's history as one with a wide variety of stories:

“Our city is rich with human stories that cross all cultural lines, from the brave stand of local students in the Civil Rights movement to the fascinating and colorful development of the music industry to the family stories of the people who live in our city today. Nashville is a great place to explore the fabric of America.”

The Nashville StoryBooth is located in the Nashville Room on the second floor of the downtown Main Library, 615 Church St. The public can make interview reservations by visiting storycorps.net or calling 862-5800.

The StoryCorps StoryBooth will be in Nashville until September 2008.

Photo by John Lamb.

Labels: history

1776 Spanish coin found in old Nashville City Cemetery

"Very good possibility it could be the real thing"

Piece of eight was legal tender in the U.S. until the 1850s

The Tennessean reports here that a 1776 Spanish coin may have been found in the old Nashville City Cemetery:

Famously known as the "piece of eight" and later the "peso," a 1776 Spanish coin called the "8 reales" was found as workers were doing restoration recently on the old Nashville City Cemetery.

The coin was found in the northeastern quadrant of the cemetery by Pat Cummins, staff archaeologist for the Murfreesboro-based Cumberland Research Group, which specializes in mortuary archaeology.

The article goes on to quote a Madison coin shop owner on the "very good possibility it could be the real thing" even in light of the "huge business" of coin counterfeiting. According to the Tennessean, no appraisal has been conducted of this particular coin, and it is unknown where the coin's owner (or the coin itself) was at the time it was minted in 1776, if it is genuine. Nashville was founded in 1779 and incorporated in 1806.

History of Spanish coins in British colonies, U.S.

According to Wikipedia, the "piece of eight" coin was frequently used in Britain's pre-Revolution American colonies, their manufacture having been outsourced here from Spain:

Prior to the American Revolution there was, due to British mercantilist policies, a chronic shortage of British currency in its colonies. Trade was often conducted using Spanish dollars. Spanish coinage was legal tender in the United States until an Act of Congress discontinued the practice in 1857. The pricing of equities on U.S. stock exchanges in 1/8 dollar denominations persisted until the New York Stock Exchange converted to pricing in sixteenths of a dollar on June 24, 1997, to be followed shortly after by decimal pricing.

Long tied to the lore of piracy, "pieces of eight" were manufactured in the Americas and transported in bulk back to Spain (to pay for wars and various other things), making them a very tempting target for seagoing pirates.

What you see on the coin

The images on the typical pieces of eight/8 reales coin are of the profile of Charles III (obverse) and the Spanish coat of arms (reverse).

The letters around Charles III read "CAROLUS III DEI GRATIA 1776" or "Charles III by the Grace of God, 1776" in English.

The letters around the Spanish coat of arms read "HISPAN[IARUM] ET IND[IARUM] REX M[EXICANUS] 8 R[EALES] F M" which in English means "King of the Spains and the Indies, Mexico [City Mint], 8 reales."

The Spanish coat of arms includes the Pillars of Hercules and the motto "Plus Ultra," which means "further beyond" in Latin. The message was that the Pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar did not so much constitute an entrance to the Mediterranean but Spain's gate to the rest of the world. Source: Wikipedia (Spanish Dollar, Pillars of Hercules)

Image source: Wikipedia (public domain)

Labels: history, spain, spanish

Edward Augustus Rutledge had family ties to Nashville, Declaration of Independence

Florida was Spanish colony from 1783 until 1821, when Jackson was appointed military governor of the U.S. territory

The Saratogian reports that the grave of Edward Augustus Rutledge, a Spanish-language interpreter for Andrew Jackson in Florida, has been found by family members. Rutledge's family had ties to Nashville and to the Declaration of Independence:

SARATOGA SPRINGS - Edward Augustus Rutledge had it all in the summer of 1826.

A grandson of two signers of the Declaration of Independence - Edward Rutledge and Arthur Middleton, both of South Carolina - his family had been granted 73,000 acres near what's now Nashville, Tenn. Only 24 years old, he had already served as a Spanish translator for family friend Andrew Jackson during Jackson's tenure as colonial governor of Florida.

Jackson, who would become president two years later, recommended Rutledge to be his successor in Florida.

But on July 16, 1826, Rutledge took his own life...

Labels: history, spanish

contribution by Cesar A. Muedas

Nashville's Channel 8 will air tonight (7pm CDT) a Nova/National Geographic special that examines a particular chapter in the story of the fall of the Inca empire.
How did the Inca Empire become as vast as the Roman in just over a century? How did less than 150 conquistadors take over the mighty Tawantinsuyo?
If you have to miss some of these answers or the whole show today (and don't get a chance to program your VCR or TiVo) you may catch the webcast version in a couple of weeks directly from the Nova archive online. In the meantime, you can read the candid behind-the-scenes story by Graham Townsley, the show's producer. And for the Ivy League angle, check out the Q&A with Terence D'Altroy, anthropology professor at Columbia University and author of "The Incas".
Furthermore, if you want to befriend a local Peruvian to talk about the show and the rich history behind it, a quick online resource may be the site of the15-month old UPAN (United Peruvian Association of Nashville).
Happy viewing and Que viva el Peru ......!

About Cesar: Born and raised in Lima, Peru, he landed in JFK in August 1986, moved from Houston to Nashville in February 1996, became a US citizen in November 2004, and lives in Davidson county with his wife of 10 years and his 2 children. Cesar is an independent business consultant and is completing his term as first chairman of COPLA (Council of Hispanic parents with children in Metro schools).

Labels: history

Country music's family ties

Polka band alumni include Pee Wee King, Willie Nelson

"There was a blending"

The Los Angeles Times published this article about the increased demand in Nashville for accordions popular with norteño or conjunto musicians, and how that demand parallels increased migration to Nashville. Norteño/conjunto music has been described this way: "Though heavily influenced by German polka, you could say conjunto is the Mexican version of country music--sentimental, nostalgic, pastoral, and often embraced by the working class."

The L.A. Times article described the immigrants who have come to Nashville in recent years, and one Nashville councilman was quoted with this reaction: "'[I]t's kind of fun having the different flavors... At the same time, we don't have to lie down and give up our culture and heritage.'"

Is the influx of new music and new people a threat to old culture and heritage? Benjamin Franklin thought so, but he was worried about German immigrants changing U.S. culture and heritage, calling them, "a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them." (source: New York Times)

The sounds of norteño/conjunto music, as well as country music, are rooted in Germanic and Czech culture. Modern country music is a descendant of the immigrant influence that Benjamin Franklin feared: "The Germans did help Germanize the United States... There was a blending." - Rutgers University history and political science professor Daniel J. Tichenor, quoted in the New York Times

"In Texas, the pastoral folk music of northern Mexico (ranchero) blended with the Polka music of German immigrants to form the hybrid of conjunto. Country, too, is a hybrid, with its roots largely attributed to the folk music of Appalachia. But Tennessee isn't the only place that country developed--Texas lays claim to a lot of it, too. Much of the country sound was forged in Texas' dance halls, where German, Czech, and Mexican folk sounds merged." - Minnesota Public Radio Music Blog

"Polka, which originated from Bohemia, has also had a significant influence on norteño. Compared side-by-side, some styles of American polka may bear striking resemblance to norteño music. The polka beat is characteristic of norteño. At the turn of the 20th century, Bohemian immigrants flowed into Sinaloa, Mexico to farm the land and mine coal. German immigrants had also settled in large numbers in the cities of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon and Mazatlan, Sinaloa as early as the late 19th century. These German immigrants fueled the demand for a local brewing industry, and they also influenced the music scene by bringing the accordion and the polka rhythm, which were part of the popular music of their homeland." - Wikipedia

"A reed instrument developed in early nineteenth century Europe, the accordion is worn like a vest and consists of right and left hand keyboards that are connected by a bellows. Notes are produced by the bellows pushing air through valves which are controlled by the keyboard. The accordion is used primarily in conjunto, tejano and cowboy musics. The late accordionist Clifton Chenier set the standard for contemporary Cajun players like Zachary Richard. Basil Duhon, who works with Grand Ole Opry star Jimmy C. Newman, offers a cajun-style approach to the instrument. Flaco Jimenez is the most popular accordionist playing conjunto today." - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

"Country fiddling reflects a considerable amount of cultural synthesis. For example, the sliding into and out of notes - one of the distinguishing features of southern fiddling - is generally thought to be a stylistic trait derived from African-American music. Popular fiddlers such as Arthur Smith and Chubby Wise brought this bluesy trait to commercial country music. The Cajun music of French Louisiana has long had a tangential, but persistent, relationship to mainstream country music, with fiddling being perhaps the most distinctive Cajun music element that has influenced country. Aspects of repertoire and style of the German, Czech and Hispanic communities in the Southwest have been incorporated into the fiddling of that region and, by extension, into regional commercial country styles." - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

"Pee Wee King was an unlikely candidate for country music stardom. Yet as a songwriter, bandleader, recording artist, and television entertainer, he broke new ground in country music, and he helped to bring waltzes, polkas, and cowboy songs into mainstream country music during ten productive years at the Grand Ole Opry. Born Frank Julius Anthony Kuczynski into a working-class Polish-German family, he grew up in the polka-and-waltz culture of Wisconsin. His musical debut occurred at age fifteen, when he played the accordion in his father’s polka band." - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

"Growing up in central Texas, [Willie] Nelson came under the influence of a wide diversity of abiding musical influences—not just the Grand Ole Opry stars of the day, but also more indigenous sounds: the Texas honky-tonk of Ernest Tubb, the western swing of Bob Wills, and even the German-American polka bands he often played in as a youth." - Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

See also PBS' Accordion Dreams

Photo by Lisa B

Labels: arts, country music, history, immigrants, mexico

Relatively open-door policies made it easier for earlier generations

Border Patrol chief promotes wider legal entry points as law enforcement tool

"Controlled, orderly and fair"

The New York Times reported on a recent Congressional hearing at Ellis Island on the history of U.S. immigrant policy, in which officials pointed out the more liberal system in place for previous generations of immigrants to the United States:

"[O]nly 2 percent of would-be immigrants were turned away at Ellis Island. The requirements were minimal compared with those of today, said Representative Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California: reasonably good health and $10, or the equivalent of $216 in today’s dollars, to show that one would not become a public burden."

The chief of the Border Patrol at the Department of Homeland Security, David V. Aguilar, suggested that a return to the more open and orderly Ellis Island policies of the past would enable law enforcement to focus their resources on criminals instead of the "vast majority" of southern border-crossers who are only seeking employment.

"Zoe Lofgren, the California Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, evoked her immigrant grandfather, Carl Robert Lofgren, who debarked in Boston at 16 a century ago without money and speaking no English, 'armed only with his dreams, his work ethic, his optimism and visions of America forged from reading Westerns written in Swedish.'”

“'This room is a visible vestige of a controlled, orderly and fair immigration system,' she said."

Photo: "Emigrants coming to the 'Land of Promise'" - U.S. Library of Congress

Labels: history, immigrants, justice

John J. Thatamanil, assistant professor of theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School, penned this editorial reflecting on his father's advice to him as a child about being an "American," in the context of Senator George Allen's "macaca" comment. Here are excerpts:

"From adolescence on, I heard a constant refrain from my Indian father: 'Don't ever believe that you're really American.' I found his advice peculiar, especially as I had been living in America since age 8 and had largely forgotten my time in India. To him, it didn't matter that the only language in which I could think a complex thought was English. It didn't matter that the only music I listened to was Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Billy Joel."

"My father's dictum infuriated me, in part because I took his comment to be racist. Did he mean that only white people count as real Americans? What about African-Americans, let alone Indian-Americans? I have insisted ever since that in America, what makes someone an American is citizenship, not race or ethnicity."

"Last month — after hearing Sen. George Allen call an Indian-American, born in this country, 'macaca' — I better appreciated my father's sober wisdom. What he meant to say is now apparent: 'You will never be accepted as truly American.'"

"Indian-Americans and other affluent immigrant groups would do well to remember the civil rights struggles of African-Americans and others without whom a racially inclusive American nation would have been impossible."

"Only by making common cause with African-Americans, only by joining with other immigrant groups that have not been as fortunate, can South Asian immigrants resist America's troubled racial history and embrace its best aspirations for a truly democratic and inclusive future."

"In the near term, what this means is that Americans of color should work together to ensure that politicians who can see the many shades and hues of American life only as exotic, foreign or even un-American have no role in shaping our common future."

Focus: Justice

Labels: english, history

The month of May 1881 was marked by the most extraordinary anomaly which could possibly have arisen, among a people whose national existence is based on the Declaration of Independence, and the assumption of liberty and equality of all men, without distinction of race or colour.

This extraordinary event was nothing less than that the American Legislature should have yielded to the clamours of the low Irish in California, and to their ceaseless anti-Chinese howl, to the extent of actually passing a law prohibiting all Chinese immigration for the next ten years, beginning from ninety days after the passing of the Act, heavy penalties being inflicted on any Shipmaster who shall land any Chinaman of the labouring class at any port in the Land of Freedom. An exception is made in favour of merchants, diplomatists, travellers, and students, provided they are duly provided with passports!

A law has also been passed to prevent any Chinaman from becoming an American citizen--the fear being that so many might wish to avail themselves of that privilege, that the whole white population of the Pacific coast would ultimately find itself a small minority, and that the Chinese "Six Companies" (mysterious but mighty potentates, who rule all the affairs of their countrymen in California) would actually rule in the Legislature of the State.

That enactments so utterly un-American could have been suffered to pass, appears so extraordinary... Public opinion appears to have been about equally divided on the question, the Eastern States taking part with the Chinamen, the Western States clamouring for his exclusion.

The clamour, however, has carried the day, and for the next ten years no Chinese workman may enter the Golden Gates of the American Paradise.

- Constance Gordon-Cumming, Granite Crags, 1884

Focus: Justice

Labels: history

The Nashville City Paper reports in this story that Nashville’s Amun Ra Theatre (ART) and Actor’s Bridge Ensemble will conduct a joint reading of the play "Ordinary Heroes," which features Nashville's prominent role in the civil rights movement. The reading is a preview; performances of the play will debut in February 2007.

“'This is truly a collaborative effort between black and white theatrical companies,' Amun Ra Artistic Director and playwright jeff obafemi carr said. 'We’re doing this as a 50-50 project, and as a way of really looking at the whole scope of Nashville’s involvement in and contributions to the Civil Rights movement. It’s a 21st century production, the marriage of the MTV generation with the classic theatrical style and structure.'”

"Ordinary Heroes combines straight narrative, spoken word segments, dance, music and multi-media inserts. It was originally funded through a creation grant with the Metro Arts Commission, and the two companies interviewed both famous and little-known people who were involved in the movement. The play offers many stories, images, encounters and anecdotes, and carr emphasizes the importance of audience attendance and interaction at tonight’s reading."

The reading is at 7:30 p.m. tonight at The Actor’s Bridge Ensemble Neuhoff Site, 100 Monroe Street. Cost is $7. For more information call 506-5988 or e-mail AmunRep@aol.com.

Labels: history

The Tennessean reports in this column on Nashville history that "The Dec. 28, 1856, issue of the Union and American details a public meeting 'of the citizens of Davidson County' at the state Capitol on Dec. 24. A resolution was adopted ordering magistrates and constables in each civil district to 'serve legal notice on all free Negroes within such district to leave the state, who are here without authority.'"

A state-wide law which had been on the books since 1806 required free African-Americans in Tennessee to carry "certificates of freedom" with them at all times. These certificates were required to participate in civic life; states like Ohio imposed fines on employers who hired African-Americans who did not have a certificate of freedom.

In 1831, the desire to force free African-Americans out of Tennessee heated up when the state legislature passed a law that made it illegal for newly freed African-Americans to stay in Tennessee upon their emancipation. In 1854, the Tennessee legislature passed another law making it even clearer where the voters of the state stood in terms of popular sentiment toward former slaves: all emancipated slaves were to be sent to the west coast of Africa.

Tennessee wasn't the only state trying to rid itself of free African-Americans. In 1806, the Virginia General Assembly effectively illegalized all its emancipated slaves, ordering any freed slaves who were still in the state in 1807 to be sold back into slavery. Illinois changed its state constitution in 1848 to prohibit free persons of color from immigrating to Illinois, and in 1853, the Illinois legislature made it a crime to bring a free African-American into the state.

At the same time of the "citizens of Davidson County" resolution in 1856, the Nashville-based Southern Methodist Publishing House published, and the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee recognized, this lecture on the morality of slavery, which gives insight to the popular sentiment that gave rise to the Davidson County resolution.

Of particular parallel to modern political thought are lecturer William A. Smith's conclusion that there could be no government without slavery - and his argument that the state has no more obligation towards the "uncivilized race which may chance to dwell within [our] borders" than the obligations it owes to "savages on our border."

"In maintaining the institution of domestic slavery we are either right or wrong, in a moral point of view," Smith wrote, acknowledging that neither necessity nor ignorance would be an excuse for moral error.

Labels: history, immigrants

Governor Bredesen and Ambassador Zhou Wen Zhong

According to this press release, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen met with the Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. on Wednesday, March 8. The two discussed the trade relationship between China and the Volunteer State.

Their topic could easily have been "illegal immigration," because the idea of such a thing - making immigration illegal - was first implanted in the U.S. legal system in 1882, to exclude all immigrants from China from entry into the U.S. The 1882 law, known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, wasn't repealed until more than forty years later, in 1943, when Congress allowed 105 immigrants a year from China. (One can almost hear the public disclaiming no ill will for Chinese immigrants, just the illegal ones.) The draconian U.S.-imposed limits on Chinese immigration were not repealed until the law changed in 1965, when limits remained, but at least they were decoupled from national origin, in the context of the civil rights movement.

How did it come to pass that this country even adopted a law that blocked people who wanted to come here, and why China? Governor Bredesen might have provided some insight into the first part of that question, considering the parallels to the modern political winds in Tennessee:

As time passed, the resentment against the Chinese increased from those who could not compete with them. Acts of violence against the Chinese continued for decades, mostly from white urban and agricultural workers. In 1862 alone, eighty-eight Chinese were reported murdered. Though large landowners that hired Chinese, railroads and other large white-owned businesses, and Chinese workers themselves pushed against a growing anti-Chinese legislation, the forces opposing the Chinese prevailed, issuing laws that excluded or harassed them from industry after industry. Mob violence steadily increased against the Chinese until even employers were at risk. Eventually, laws such the Naturalization Act of 1870 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted immigration of Chinese immigrants into the U.S.

A few years later, in 1885, a public fundraising campaign was underway for the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. (The statue would be unveiled in 1886, the brainchild of two Frenchmen who were inspired by the liberty granted to freed slaves in the U.S.) Saum Song Bo, an aspiring citizen and attorney who could be neither under the new Chinese Exclusion Act, could not find it in himself to contribute to the pedestal fund. He wrote this letter in response.

Sir: A paper was presented to me yesterday for inspection, and I found it to be specially drawn up for subscription among my countrymen toward the Pedestal Fund of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty. Seeing that the heading is an appeal to American citizens, to their love of country and liberty, I feel that my countrymen and myself are honored in being thus appealed to as citizens in the cause of liberty. But the word liberty makes me think of the fact that this country is the land of liberty for men of all nations except the Chinese. I consider it as an insult to us Chinese to call on us to contribute toward building in this land a pedestal for a statue of liberty. That statue represents liberty holding a torch which lights the passage of those of all nations who come into this country. But are the Chinese allowed to come? As for the Chinese who are here, are they allowed to enjoy liberty as men of all other nationalities enjoy it? Are they allowed to go about everywhere free from the insults, abuses, assaults, wrongs, and injuries from which men of other nationalities are free?

If there be a Chinaman who came to this country when a lad, who has passed through an American institution of learning of the highest grade, who has so fallen in love with American manners and ideas that he desires to make his home in this land, and who, seeing that his countrymen demand one of their own number to be their legal adviser, representative, advocate, and protector, desires to study law, can he be a lawyer? By the law of this nation, he, being a Chinaman, cannot become a citizen, and consequently cannot be a lawyer...

Whether this statute against the Chinese or the statue of liberty will be the more lasting monument to tell future ages of the liberty and greatness of this country, will be known only to future generations.

Liberty, we Chinese do love and adore thee; but let not those who deny thee to us, make of thee a graven image and invite us to bow down to it.

Saum Song Bo

Our "illegal" Hispanic friends in Nashville would seem to have a sympathetic ear with Ambassador Zhou Wen Zhong. Whether that sympathy can be found in the Tennessee state capitol in 2006 is a question to be answered not only by the language and legislation of our elected representatives, but also by Governor Bredesen's signature.

sources: Saum Song Bo letter, Statue of Liberty history, Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigration history, Governor Bredesen press release

Labels: history, immigrants

from Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963:

I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their "thus saith the Lord" far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.

...

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant “Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all." Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected?

...

In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

...

One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

...

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Labels: education, history

"Martin Luther King rectified unspeakable flaws tarnishing America, an America different from the one we see today ... Not only African Americans needed him, but all America needed him. He provided a road map so all Americans could find freedom."
- Peter Chu

"He [Dr. King] says, 'You are as good as anyone' - that makes me feel like I'm important ... I don't care about what other people think about me. I don't care if they say, 'You don't know English.' I know Spanish is my first language and I know that I'm important."
- Student, Thomas Jefferson Middle School, Arlington, Virginia

"In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action. ... At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement."
- Nobelprize.org

Labels: english, history, spanish

Hispanics face segregation 50 years after Brown

"At Garfield High in East Los Angeles, 99 percent of nearly 5,000 students are Mexican-American. Similarly, Latinos across the country largely miss out on the experience of going to school with classmates of different races and cultures."

"Today, 50 years after the Supreme Court ended enforced segregation in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Latinos, the nation's largest minority group, are the most segregated in public schools, according to Harvard's Civil Rights Project. The 1954 landmark decision did not apply to Latinos until 1970."

"Besides ethnic isolation, the Civil Rights Project says, Latinos endure overcrowded schools in areas like East Los Angeles, where immigrants settle in large numbers. In addition, Latino-majority schools tend to have less qualified teachers and fewer educational resources, the project says. The large number of immigrant children who arrive at class unable to properly speak English has also hindered academic achievement in the schools, it says."

Boston.com

Georgia school holds separate Hispanic prom

"At Toombs County High School, there are three separate dances: one for blacks, one for whites and this year for the first time, one for Hispanics."

"The idea of separate proms was first introduced by some white parents in the 1970s in response to integration and has remained a tradition ever since."

"School officials said students are invited to attend any of the proms — even all three if they wish."

"But high school junior Anna Rosa Perez said racial crossover is still discouraged at the dances and thinks the school needs to get involved and sponsor one prom for everyone."

FoxNews.com

Labels: education, english, history, statistics

Dwight Lewis: nation still suffers from 'separate and unequal' educational dichotomy

"'… The bleak record of public education for ghetto children is growing worse. In the critical skills — verbal and reading ability — Negro students are falling further behind whites with each year of school completed. The high unemployment and underemployment rate for Negro youth is evidence, in part, of the growing educational crisis.'"

"That was 36 years ago, and one would hope that by now, this nation's schools, indeed, do know how to equip its children to develop their potential and to participate fully in American life."

"Unfortunately, that appears not to be the case."

"'Half or more of black, Hispanic and Native American youths in the United States are getting left behind before high school graduation in a 'hidden crisis' obscured by the U.S. Department of Education regulations issued under the 'No Child Left Behind' Act that allow schools, districts and states to all but eliminate graduation rate accountability for minority subgroups,' a report released Wednesday by two non-partisan groups, the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and the Urban Institute, said."

"The report went on to say that while 75% of white students graduated from high school in 2001, only 50% of all black students, 51% of Native American students and 53% of all Hispanic students got a high school diploma in the same year."

"The problem was even worse for black, Native American and Hispanic young men at 43%, 47% and 48%, respectively, the study found."

"Twenty years after issuing its first report, there was a call for a second Kerner Commission because while 'the nation was no longer as divided by race as it was in the 1960s, great gaps remained.'"

"Now, 36 years later, look at the gaps not only in education but elsewhere. Isn't it a shame to grow older and not wiser, even as a nation?"

The Tennessean

Labels: education, history

Black History Month highlights cultural diversity at McMurray Middle School

"One by one, McMurray Middle School students broke out of a single file and introduced 37 of the 50 countries represented at the school. From Afghanistan, Cuba and France to Mexico, Laos and Togo, they waved the national flags."

"Though the assembly celebrated Black History Month and Brotherhood-Sisterhood Week, it touched on much more than one culture."

"And rightly so, teachers say. Talking about Martin Luther King Jr. and his leadership was just a jumping-off point to delve into multiculturalism."

The Tennessean

Labels: history

Senator Frist leads civil rights weekend for fellow senators

"Following a pledge to reach out to black voters, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist led a largely Republican group of senators through the South as they visited sites important to the 1960s civil rights movement."

"Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a leader of the civil rights movement, is serving as tour guide during the three-day trip, which also includes stops in Selma, Birmingham and Nashville, Tenn."

"'The civil rights movement transcends party,' Lewis said. 'It's good to have Republican senators here; they will be able to go back and take a message to the president and their colleagues.'"

"The trip was organized by the Faith and Politics Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit that seeks to build bridges between people of different backgrounds."

"An analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a think tank focused on black issues, said Republicans want to win over minorities because black and Hispanic populations are growing much more quickly than white Americans."

"The Republican senators on the trip were Sam Brownback of Kansas, Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Mike DeWine of Ohio, George Allen of Virginia, Richard Shelby of Alabama and Sessions."

"Jon Corzine of New Jersey was the only Democratic senator on the trip."

"Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee planned to join the group Sunday in Nashville, site of lunch counter sit-in protests against segregation."

ABCNEWS.com

Labels: history

Dedication of main public library's new Civil Rights Room will attract non-violent movement's leaders

"It's an event no Middle Tennessean should miss. It's a history lesson. It's history in the making. It's storytelling. It's a commemoration."

"And it's free. All you have to do is go. And go, you should."

"This weekend, beginning with a series of workshops from 1-3:30 p.m. Saturday, the commemoration of the Nashville Public Library's new Civil Rights Room will begin."

"The room, which opened in December, is 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.'"

"This weekend, John Lewis is just one of those who participated in the civil rights movement here and elsewhere who will be coming to Nashville. Others include the Revs. James Bevel, James Lawson and C.T. Vivian as well as Diane Nash."

The Tennessean, Nashville Public Library

Labels: history