We are lucky enough to have a number of civil rights activists who changed Nashville for the better and are still alive and around for us to honor and appreciate. And we’re now in the strange situation where we have a street named for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who at least was frequently in Nashville, and Rosa Parks, who was not, but none for the people like Rev. James Lawson or Kwame Lillard or John Lewis, who were here, on the ground, working for Nashville’s betterment; or Diane Nash, who famously confronted Mayor Ben West and got him to say that he thought segregation was wrong.
In a city with so few streets named after women and no streets named after our own civil rights icons, you’d think naming a street after Diane Nash while she’s still alive to accept our gratitude would be a no-brainer.
We’ve never done it.
In the past, when I’ve asked Metro Council members why we can’t do this thing we obviously should do, I’ve been met with answers like, “Well, we have rules and the rules say you can’t name a street after a living person or after a dead person until they’ve been dead two years.”
But we also have a state law that clearly says you can’t change the name of a street, and I quote, “that has been erected for, named, or dedicated on public property in honor of any historic conflict, historic entity, historic event, historic figure, or historic organization.” (From Tennessee State Code 4-1-412.) We don’t follow that law.
Charlotte Robertson is a historic figure. She’s one of the founders of Nashville and we changed the name of the street named for her.
That’s not the only time we’ve ignored that law. The Southern Baptists wanted their new headquarters to still be on Lifeway Plaza, so we changed the name of Jo Johnston Avenue Lifeway Plaza. Jo Johnston was a Confederate General, but I guess since he didn’t have long, flowing hair (he was bald) like White Tennessee’s History Boyfriend, Nathan Bedford Forrest, and he didn’t run a terrorist hate group after the war, but instead befriended Grant and Sherman, fuck that dude.
And don’t even get me started on the rank hypocrisy of the state legislature who passed the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act so they could try to thwart Memphis in its efforts to stop pretending like Nathan Bedford Forrest was so awesome, but who won’t step up to demand Nashville stop breaking the law when it comes to Charlotte Robertson or Jo Johnston. Is it because we’re not Memphis? Because they’re not Nathan Bedford Forrest?
But now that we’ve established that we’re street name outlaws, let’s name some streets for our civil rights heroes while they’re still around to appreciate it.
And let’s start with Diane Nash.
