In 1960, a young man named John Lewis and several of his fellow Nashville Student Movement members participated in a string of organized sit-ins in downtown Nashville — nonviolent demonstrations as a means of protesting the city’s segregated lunch counters. Lewis and others were arrested over and over again, but months later those sit-ins were credited with making Nashville the first city in the South to integrate its lunch counters. Lewis famously carried on that penchant for getting into “good trouble,” as he called it, throughout his career — he ultimately served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, continuing his fight for racial equality and human rights. In July — more than six decades after Lewis’ sit-ins and on the first anniversary of his death — Nashville celebrated the late congressman and his legacy by renaming a portion of Fifth Avenue downtown Rep. John Lewis Way. May it remind us all to stir up some good trouble when the need arises.
Best Tribute to a Civil Rights Icon
Rep. John Lewis Way
The unveiling of Rep. John Lewis Way in 2021
