Walking into History: The Beginning of School Desegregation in Nashville

Abstract

Grace McKinley takes Rita Buchanan and Linda McKinley to school among protesters, Nashville, TN, September 1957. © Nashville Public Library. In September 1957, three years after the US Supreme Court declared school segregation laws unconstitutional, the public schools of Nashville, Tennessee, implemented a "stairstep plan" that began with a select group of first-graders and added one grade a year until all twelve grades were desegregated. Nineteen black first-graders enrolled in eight previously all-white schools. Organized white protesters, led by John Kasper, appeared at most of the schools, but there was no violence. The night after desegregation began, a dynamite explosion destroyed a wing of Hattie Cotton Elementary School, where one black child had enrolled. The violent incident broke the back of the protest movement, and no further demonstrations marked the ensuing days as desegregation proceeded.

Keywords

• African American Studies
• Education
• Politics and Government
• Social Movements
• Urban and Suburban Studies
• Whiteness Studies