Desegregation of Franklin County Public Schools - Tennessee Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Nine years after Brown v. Board of Education, eight local families initiated a lawsuit to compel Franklin County to desegregate the public school system. The plaintiffs included the Bates, Cameron, Camp, Goodstein, Hill, Sisk, Staten, and Turner families. They were represented by Nashville attorney Z. Alexander Looby and Jack Greenburg, Constance Baker Motley, and James M. Nabrit of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The case was successful, and in 1964 the U.S. District Court issued an order to desegregate the schools. This lawsuit was notable in that it involved both white and African-American plaintiffs.

The Sewanee community raised funds to add four new classrooms to the Sewanee Public School, located at this site, thus eliminating the argument that there was insufficient space to educate all of the community's children together. Additionally, during the summer of 1964, Sewanee residents offered tutoring across the street at Otey Parish. This effort countered a second argument that African-American children would not be adequately prepared to join their white classmates.

Marker Name: Desegregation of Franklin County Public Schools Marker Location: Roadside Type of Marker: Other Marker Number: 2E 79 Group(s) Responsible for placing Marker: Tennessee Historical Commission

Visit Instructions:
At minimum, your visit must consist of a picture of the marker itself or anything referenced on the marker plus additional information you may have learned about the waymark topic. (You and your GPS receiver do not need to be in the picture, but can.)

Recent Visits/Logs:

There are no logs for this waymark yet.