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Photo: Eric England

Every Nashvillian should know the name Z. Alexander Looby. The West Indian immigrant was a lawyer and city councilmember who — despite being the target of racial terror in the early 1960s — soldiered on as a leader in Nashville’s civil rights movement. Looby is at the center of a gorgeous and powerful mural created this summer by nonprofit Creative Girls Rock and spearheaded by local artist Elisheba Israel Mrozik. They Fought With Words: Leaders, Lawyers and Educators is prominently featured on the west wall of the Looby Community Center, the North Nashville space named for the local icon, and the mural also features civil rights leaders Diane Nash, Thurgood Marshall and James Carroll Napier, among others. It’s a bright, vibrant addition to the community center, and one that should inspire generations to come.

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