On Saturday, April 20 — 64 years and one day past the time when Diane Nash stood on Nashville's courthouse steps and asked Mayor Ben West if he believed it was wrong to discriminate against someone solely on the basis of their race — another Nashville mayor, Freddie O’Connell, welcomed Nash once again to those steps as the city honored her by naming the front plaza of the courthouse after her.
Nashville has a rule that streets and parks can’t be named after someone until after they die. This means, in general, we as a city don’t honor our civil rights icons until after they’ve passed. Conveniently, this means that the city rarely has to publicly reckon with its past. But Metro councilmembers found a loophole: Naming something other than a park or a street after Nash — and ta-da, we get this amazing moment.
People who were part of the movement with Nash came from all over to be there with her for this. A couple of her high school friends were there. Many of her family members were there. And she took the time to make sure the crowd recognized them all. She gave a lovely speech, talking about her time in Nashville and illustrating the principles of nonviolence she learned from the Rev. James Lawson. She ended by speaking directly to those younger than her and her peers, saying how — even though they didn’t know us yet — they had loved us, and did this for us.
Whew, it was so beautiful.Â
I was thinking about how John Kasper, 67 years ago, on the evening of the first day of school, held his rally first at War Memorial Auditorium and then next on the steps of the Capitol. How he urged his white crowd to “attack, attack, attack.” And how just this year, we had Nazis yet again at the state Capitol, rallying. And here, still, are Diane Nash and her friends, on the courthouse steps, offering Nashville an alternative to all that hate and anger, taking inspiration from those who came before them and working toward a better city for those who come after them.
Even if it weren't in the Morris Memorial Building, such a museum would be a boon for our city
The thing is, they’re so ordinary. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I just mean that those who changed our city and then our nation were just ordinary people who wanted things to be better. Diane Nash had been training and preparing for months, but Frankie Henry stepped down off a city bus after dance practice and into the heart of the sit-ins almost by chance — no training, no preparation, nothing. Regular people who saw the chance to change things took it. And now they're just quietly going about their lives.
How lucky we are to live among these unassuming heroes.
Councilmember At-Large Zulfat Suara on Saturday drew attention to the need for a civil rights museum/museum of African American history, pointing out that one of the cups that the protestors had been fed out of at the jail back in 1960 had been passed around at the press conference that morning. “Where does it go after this?" she asked. "Where is its home?”
And this got me thinking, again, about whether we’re going to continue to dither on this and just hope that the families of historic figures keep and maintain artifacts and papers until we get our shit together. I mean, yeah, my money is on us doing that. We don’t seem to be able to move anyone quickly enough to buy a building to put such a museum in.Â
But we have the Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library downtown. We have the expertise to curate this already on the city’s payroll. What if the downtown library became the Civil Rights Museum and Library? The location is perfect, both because it’s right in the heart of things and because it’s built on the site of many of the civil rights protests. There’s parking. And the library already has the experts and pertinent collections. Plus, Metro archives.
Our time with these giants is growing short, and we don’t have enough steps at the courthouse to name after everyone. I just wish we could make as many opportunities to express our gratitude to each of them as we did for Ms. Nash this weekend. And a museum just seems like such a great way to do that.
