Exploring Black History In and Around Nashville

In Nashville

Frankie Pierce Park
A park near downtown Nashville, honoring the legacy of Frankie Pierce, who worked throughout her life to promote equality and human dignity. She was the first Black woman to address the Tennessee State Woman's Suffrage Convention in 1920 and founder of the Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls in North Nashville.

Historic Jefferson Street and the Jefferson Street Sound Museum 
A nonprofit that serves to honor and educate people about the music and entertainment legacy of Jefferson Street in Nashville while bridging that legacy with education, grassroots programming, and cultural interest through exhibits and opportunities to contribute to the musical legacy through the onsite production studio and band rehearsal hall.

Woolworth and the Nashville Lunch Counter Sit-Ins
In 1960, around 124 students from Nashville's historic black colleges and universities staged sit-ins at lunch counters across Nashville to challenge segregation - most notably at the Woolworth five-and-dime store downtown. Among those students was John Lewis, a then student activist and future U.S. Congressman.

National Museum of African American Music
The only museum in the United States dedicated to educating and preserving music that was created, influenced, and inspired by African Americans such as gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and hip-hop.

The Nashville Public Library's Civil Rights Room
The Civil Rights Room is a space for education and exploration of the Civil Rights Collection, illuminating a time when thousands of African-American citizens in Nashville sparked a nonviolent challenge to racial segregation in the city and across the South.
(Note: The Main Library Downtown where the Civil Rights Room resides is currently closed after the June 2025 fire, but is expected to reopen in the coming months.)

Around the South

Tennessee
McLemore House and the Hard Bargain neighborhood (Franklin) 
The Hard Bargain neighborhood was established in 1875 when Harvey McLemore, a freed slave, subdivided 15 acres which he purchased from his former owner, Judge W.S. McLemore. He began selling lots to other formerly enslaved people to build Hard Bargain, a thriving Black community composed of farmers, brick masons, carpenters, and other working class people.

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel (Memphis, TN) 
Located at the former Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, the museum offers interactive exhibits and historic collections to walk visitors through Civil Rights history.

Alabama
Equal Justice Initiative's Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace & Justice, and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park (Montgomery, AL) 
The Legacy Sites invite visitors to reckon with the country's history of racial injustice in the places where that history was lived, exploring Indigenous lands, slavery, and the Civil Rights movement through art, technology, and nature.

Tuskegee Airmen National Historical Site (Tuskegee, AL) 
An interactive historical site to commemorate the contributions and pioneering service of the black fighter pilots who overcame military segregation practices to serve the United States in World War II. 

16th Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, AL) 
A still-active church and memorial site for the four young black girls killed in a bombing while attending Sunday School in 1963, which marked a turning point in the civil rights movement and contributed to Congressional support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Arkansas
Little Rock Nine Memorial at the State Capitol (Little Rock, AR) 
The monument honors the courage of the nine African American students enrolled at Little Rock Central High School, who began the process of desegregating the city’s public schools in 1957.

Mississippi
Mississippi Civil Rights Museum (Jackson, MS) 
The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum commemorates a heroic chapter in the centuries-long African American freedom struggle by local people like Medgar Evers and Vernon Dahmer, who mounted a courageous campaign to win their civil rights.

Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden (Ruleville, MS) 
A memorial garden dedicated to the memory and legacy of famed civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought for economic justice for disenfranchised and impoverished black farmers in the US south and founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative in 1967.