Nashville Nonviolent Student Leadership Advanced Equality And Justice

Today, we honor Juneteenth. We honor the sacrifice, resilience, and perseverance taught by civil rights leaders. And we honor those that continue the fight for racial justice today.   

More work remains to be done. But we can use history and the lessons from those before us to continue paving the path forward. As a former colleague of mine in the U.S. Congress, the civil rights activist John Lewis, said over 60 years ago: “If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Will there be a better day for it tomorrow or next year?”  

Back in 2004 while I was Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, I joined Congressman Lewis on his annual civil rights pilgrimage with the Faith and Politics Institute to Alabama and Tennessee. I had worked with Lewis over the previous decade on issues of health care disparities, but it was this four-day journey with him that opened my eyes to the realities that had been endured by so many. And I was introduced to his humility and leadership – and his willingness to face violence and intimidation, injustice and oppression, with steadfast love and bravery.   

 A year later I returned with him on the next pilgrimage, this time to Selma to recognize, remember, and pay our respects on the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. There are no words for this complicated moment in our nation’s history. But later, reflecting on that day walking alongside Congressman Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I remarked, “It is difficult for me to find the words to express the power of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Congressman John Lewis as we crossed that bridge… We walked in the footsteps of giants.”  

 Returning to Washington, I personally introduced on the Senate floor, and oversaw passage of a resolution recognizing the 40th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. It read:

“The citizens of the United States must not only remember this historic event, but also commemorate its role in the creation of a more just society and appreciate the ways in which it has inspired other movements around the world.” And the following year, I was proud to work directly with Congressman Lewis on the Voting Rights Reauthorization Act of 2006. The fearless social justice warrior who decades ago had fought to create this law was now writing it.   

That’s progress.   

 From a very young age, I saw that social progress can be slow and often met with resistance. My earliest recollections of such go back to when I was just five years old watching my Aunt Bonnie (Margaret Cate), who was the principal at the Hattie Cotton School in Nashville, lead her community with compassion in the face of tragedy. The massive bombing of the Hattie Cotton School building on September 10, 1957, was personal, not to just me and my family but to the entire community.  

 This awful act of hate and attempted intimidation was in response to a single black girl who had been newly enrolled in the school’s first grade. It occurred the day after the mandated integration of Hattie Cotton. I saw this through a child’s eyes, too young to fully understand the magnitude. Yet, I sensed the devastation, the disappointment of the moment. But it was the remarkable response of my aunt — followed by the neighborhood, and then almost immediately the broader Nashville community — that captures me to this day. It was a response not of fear and anger but of resilience, of coming together, of unexpected re-commitment and optimism. The badly damaged grammar school, remaining integrated and with broad support, reopened in just a week’s time.   

 For Nashville, this was a catalyst for what was to come. Over the course of the next five years, Nashville evolved a particularly unique model within the civil rights movement throughout the entire South. Led by leaders and activists like James Lawson, Diane Nash, and John Lewis, the movement here in Nashville set a new standard. And many other cities would soon follow.   

 Notably, the Nashville movement and fight for desegregation was so informed, disciplined, and organized that when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Fisk University in April 1960, he praised its brilliance, stated: “I came to Nashville not to bring inspiration, but to gain inspiration from the great movement that has taken place in this community.”  

 Over time, many of the stories from the Nashville civil rights movement have been relegated to past memory. But in honor of Juneteenth, it’s worth looking back at this particular Nashville movement, which unlike other cities was led prominently by college students; it is generally regarded as one of the most disciplined, organized, and effective initiatives of the 1960s.  

The Nashville Movement  

 On February 13, 1960, the first of the historic, pivotal Nashville sit-ins took place at downtown lunch counters. I was only eight years old, but I remember the conversation around our breakfast table, specifically my mother saying she wished she could go downtown to support the students in the sit-in to occur at the Woolworths later that day.   

Preparations for this series of demonstrations had begun the year prior under the leadership of James Lawson, a graduate student studying to become a Methodist minister at the Vanderbilt Divinity School (Vanderbilt expelled Lawson in March of 1960 for his participation in the sit-ins).  Lawson, who studied the principles of nonviolent resistance while working as a missionary in India, began hosting nonviolence workshops at First Baptist Church Capitol Hill to prepare Nashville college students to challenge segregation, championing the teachings of Jesus, Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  

 Lawson used these valuable teachings to develop his “ten rules of conduct,” alongside Bernard Lafayette, a student at American Baptist College. These memorized rules, practiced repeatedly with role-playing, served to ensure that this local movement stayed true to nonviolence resistance. They were put on small pocket cards so that the students and activists could carry them during sit-ins and demonstrations.  

  “ten rules of conduct”  

1. Do not block entrances to stores outside nor the aisles inside  
2. Do refer information seekers to your leader in a polite manner  
3. Do not hold conversations with the floor walker  
4. Do show yourself friendly & courteous at all times  
5. Do not strike back nor curse if abused  
6. Do sit straight; always face the counter  
7. Do not laugh out loud  
8. Do report all serious incidents to your leader  
9. Do not leave your seat until your leader has given you permission  
10. Do remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, & Martin Luther King  

 The series of sit-ins that began on February 10th stood to challenge local downtown lunch counters that were “whites only.” As a kid I remember that downtown stores like Walgreens, Woolworths, S.H. Kress, Harveys, Cain-Sloan, and McLellan’s refused to serve African American customers. But these demonstrations proved that an unwavering dedication to and practice of nonviolence could lead to real change.  And on May 10, 1960, exactly three months after the first sit-it, Nashville became the first major southern city to allow black and white patrons to eat together in public places.   

But our region’s influence on the nation’s larger civil rights movement didn’t end here.  And we cannot talk about the Nashville movement without talking about one of its most renowned leaders, Diane Nash.  

 Nash was an early student of James Lawson’s nonviolence workshops and was one of the first to be successfully served at the downtown Post House Restaurant on March 17, 1960. After marching with over four thousand fellow demonstrators on April 19, 1960, she famously stood on the steps of City Hall and with television cameras rolling pointedly asked Mayor Ben West, “Do you feel it is wrong to discriminate against a person solely on the basis of their race or color?” To the surprise of many, the mayor admitted that he did, and this major turning point cleared the path to desegregation almost three weeks later. In 2021, the same plaza where Nash posed this question was named in her honor.  

 The Nashville movement and the students who Lawson trained in nonviolent resistance would go on to play a leading role in movements all over the U.S. They were a part of the Open Theater Movement, the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, Freedom Summer, the 1965 Selma Voting Rights Movement, and the Chicago Freedom Movement to name a few.  

 What makes the Nashville movement so unique among other cities? First, it was disciplined, carefully planned, systematically organized, and maybe most importantly, decidedly nonviolent. Second, college students played an integral role. Nashville was home to a number of historically black colleges and universities including Fisk and Tennessee A&I, and student activists worked closely with the larger community. Moreover, the Nashville movement had a close alliance among blacks and whites, benefiting from an active, loyal contingent of white civil rights supporters. Third, the local movement targeted local institutions including drug stores, restaurants, theaters, and the public transit system, not just national laws. 

 This is not the place for a personal journey, but my life and work have been framed by the sacrifice and actions and accomplishments of these people, events and movement. In fact, Lewis credits my father (Dr. Thomas Frist, Sr.) with creating a “turning point” that helped energize and strengthen the Nashville sit-in movement in 1960. I was unaware of this until Lewis shared the story with me nearly 40 years later when we were in Congress together.  

 Dad was on the board of Fisk University when Lewis and other civil rights activists needed a gymnasium to train and prepare for their nonviolent sit-ins in 1960. At the time, Fisk’s Cravath Hall was one of the few places in Nashville where African Americans could meet and organize without fear of arrest or violence. 

 When Lewis and other activists approached Fisk President Charles S. Johnson about using Cravath Hall as a meeting place, Johnson was initially hesitant due to concerns about potential violence. According to Lewis it was Dad, a forceful advocate for opening up the university to the civil rights movement, who singlehandedly persuaded Johnson to allow the activists to use the gymnasium. Fisk, thus, became an important hub for the Nashville sit-ins, and with the use of Cravath Hall helped to galvanize the civil rights movement in the city and beyond. 

 Years later, in a 2004 oral history with the Nashville Public Library, Lewis said: ”Dr. Frist was a man of compassion, a man of vision. He helped make it possible for us to change Nashville. We will always be grateful for his courage, his wisdom, and his belief in the philosophy of nonviolence.” 

My years in clinical medicine and heart transplantation were also impacted. I attribute a particular commitment to addressing healthcare disparities and serving vulnerable populations in large part to a foundation built on these early life observations. But years of discrimination and structural inequities cannot be conquered overnight. And advancing health equity requires discipline and resilience, in the same vein demonstrated by the Nashville movement.    

I think back to the 2003 publication of the Institute of Medicine’s groundbreaking report, “Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care,” wherein they reported pervasive inequalities in care and detailed the implicit bias that exists across our health care system. But even today, 20 years later, most of these disparities still exist.  

 One of the most distinctive aspects of the Nashville movement was that it was enduring, lasting from 1960 to 1965, much longer than most other regional civil rights campaigns. The activists faced setback after setback, but, dedicated to their cause and mission, they endured and persisted with the movement and its principles for years. And then they saw change. As I look where we are today, we must recognize the goal of true equity is still out in the future, but that with purpose we can and will get there – not just in medicine but in all other fields and walks of life. 

 Juneteenth is a day to honor progress. But it must also be a day to acknowledge the hard work that remains. Just as in my youth there was a time men and women of a different color couldn’t eat together at the same counter, 60 years later this is incomprehensible. Today, let us pause and reflect on our monumental progress. Let us rededicate ourselves to the charge and example set by our civil rights leaders. Let us come together, rooted in unity, as we march toward true equality and justice.