In 1957 a handful of African American parents and their first-grade children led the way in integrating the Nashville public schools as part of the nationwide response to the U.S. Supreme Court's historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision. Then in 1960, Nashville was a principal training ground for some of the nations most influential leaders in the civil rights movement, many of whom were schooled in the techniques of nonviolent protest. Along with the Nashville community, a group of young Nashville college students organized the Nashville sit-ins, city marches, and an effective downtown store boycott that led to the desegregation of public accommodations in the city. The Nashville protests came to serve as models for later protests throughout the South, and its leaders went on to make pivotal contributions to the success of the civil rights movement, including the Freedom Rides of 1961, the formation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Student Organizing Committee, historic protests in Selma, Alabama, and the 1963 March on Washington.

In 2001, Nashville philanthropists Robin and Bill King funded the development of the Civil Rights Room, located in the Special Collections Division. The gift enabled the library to establish the collection and to launch the Civil Rights Oral History Project as a supporting collection to the division.

The Civil Rights Oral History Collection contains a series of interviews done by library staff members and volunteers with people who were involved in the Nashville and national movement. Interviews cover general life experiences and include discussions about race relations, civil rights, education, economics, social life, family life, and other topics. Each interviewee has at minimum an interview summary; and in some cases, biographical information from clippings, newspapers, photographs or other printed sources. Complete transcribed interviews exist for many of the interviewees. This is an ongoing project.

In addition to collection oral histories, manuscript materials, ephemera, photographs, and other materials relating to the civil rights movement are also being collected.

Civil Rights Oral History Project Finding Aid
Listen to excerpts from interviews and view other material from the Civil Rights Collection.
See others items from the division’s collections related to civil rights.