The call to preserve history
In honor of a leader
Hello friends!
It could just be me, or the age I am in, but my life and the way the world is reflected to me in this moment feels particularly charged. I don’t mean charged in the negative sense, but rather heightened, as if decisions made at this moment have more potency.
Maybe it’s because it’s graduation season, one in which my youngest child has finished his high school career, and our relationship with the school where both my children attended is coming to a close. Maybe it’s because my daughter, now a junior in college and recently returned from her semester abroad, is now contemplating her future in a more immediate way after having the chance to explore her world more broadly.
One of the ways I have spent a significant portion of the last decade has been to gather and share the history of the Tennessee State Tigerbelles. As with all stories, the context adds significantly to the theme. The Tigerbelles isn’t just a story about a women’s track team. It’s a story of triumph over adversity and to show the layers of adversity these women overcame, we need to understand the time and place in which they lived.
In the late 1950s, Nashville was at the center of the growing Civil Rights Movement, and one of its key leaders was James Morris Lawson, Jr., a student at Vanderbilt’s Divinity School. James Lawson passed away this week at the age of 95.
When we lose the activists and witnesses who can share firsthand what they have seen and felt in their lives, it reminds me more than ever how important it is to keep the lessons they have taught us alive. Today I wanted to share part of Lawson’s story from The Tigerbelles book relating to his life in Nashville.
The leadership at Vanderbilt looked forward to a gradual, peaceful transition for the changing landscape (of the growing Civil Rights movement). Their goal was to keep things civil and distinguished, and let change be organic and slow-moving. Their best-laid plans were upended, however, with the admittance of a brilliant young man who had studied with Gandhi and had become impatient with the slow arc of change.
Jim (Rev. James) Lawson had met Martin Luther King in the spring of 1957, and the two men discussed Lawson’s wishes to participate in the “Southern struggle.” King encouraged Lawson not to wait, saying that his help was needed urgently. Lawson was advised that Nashville would be the right place to work, and Vanderbilt’s Divinity School, the place to study. He applied and was accepted for the fall term of 1959. Lawson spent his nights and weekends working with the Southern chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and his days as a student.
“When I came to Vanderbilt,” Lawson said, “I had no notions about limitations upon my being who I am or who I was then… I loved sports then and wanted to play football and basketball with the Divinity School teams, and I did (I learned later on, of course, that this had some eyebrows lifted).” Lawson was one of the only Black students on the otherwise all-white campus.
Lawson had been participating in workshops on nonviolence throughout the South and was ready to organize in Nashville. The plan was quickly developed to target downtown Nashville, and students from local schools joined him, including John Lewis, Diane Nash, and Marion Barry. One of the early targets was Cain-Sloan department store, where, known or unknown, one of the owners served on the board of trustees at Vanderbilt. The protests started peacefully as planned with over 250 students participating in various locations, and eventually an opposition developed, with local “roughs” in their white T-shirts and slicked hair meeting the students with signs painted with slurs and thrown cigarette butts.
On Sunday, February 27, 1960, eighty-one students were arrested, and the Nashville Banner ran an editorial declaring Lawson the leader of the movement and claiming that he was “inciting anarchy.” The Banner at the time was run by James Stahlman, another member of the Vanderbilt board of trustees, and an outspoken segregationist.
The board of trustees immediately demanded that Lawson be expelled, and several members of the Divinity School faculty resigned in protest. A months-long battle ensued at the school where the future of the entire university was put at risk. The major financial supporters, the Ford Foundation and the Vanderbilt family, were embarrassed by the scandal that was capturing national attention. It was said that by taking such a stand against progress, Vanderbilt would be forfeiting their status as a major national university and would end up nothing more than a “Southern finishing school.”
The movement to demand civil rights was noticed by the white power structure in Nashville, but its citizens were under the impression that changes were already occurring peacefully and “in an orderly and civilized way. Yet there was more talk about change than there was actual change.” The movement demanded more than “the right to eat a hamburger where they chose.” They wanted to create change in Nashville, and then move their momentum throughout the Deep South, “rooting out segregation in all its insidious forms.”
(Rev. James) Lawson led workshops at the First Baptist Church, where students were taught to maintain peace while under attack, often subjected to intense simulations of actions they expected to encounter during protests such as being taunted with slurs, pouring buckets of liquids over their heads, and being physically dragged around.
“You see, the greatness of the nonviolent action is that it says that if you’re willing to suffer for what’s right, wrong will show itself, and when it does, the people will turn against it because they know it is evil,” C.T. Vivian said.
This section is included in The Tigerbelles to illustrate what was happening in the lives of the Tigerbelles as they prepared for their Olympic performance in Rome in 1960. Their friends and fellow students were protesting with James Lawson, being arrested, and marching for their freedom. However, if the Tigerbelles were to participate it was made clear to them that they would lose their athletic eligibility. In an Olympic year, this meant they would be barred from participating in an event they had spent their entire lives preparing for. It was one of the most difficult decisions they would ever make. Their coach counseled them that they could make their own statements by their excellence on the world stage. “Show them on the track,” Coach Temple said.
Understanding this context and recognizing the power of the figures in their lives is crucial to understanding the story of the Tigerbelles, and also the story of the Tigerbelles can shed light on an entire movement that continues to influence our lives today.
Very rarely in my life have I experienced an event in singularity. My happiest moments may come in the shadow of sadness, and challenges are often accompanied by moments of ease and serendipity. This is something that seems to be more prevalent than ever in this world that races around me at breakneck speed while I spend time buried in the research of the past.
So as I note and remark on the passing of a great leader, I look for ways to honor the lives of those who came before us and try to learn from what they shared.
That’s all for now. I hope you are all enjoying this beautiful start to summer and spending time with those you love!
Upcoming Events
Tonight at the Stoneham Historical Society and Museum at 7:15 pm
Saturday at the Nantucket Book Festival 10 am - 2 pm in the Atheneum
Tuesday, June 18 with the Knoxville Rotary Club