[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 18 (Thursday, February 12, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E175]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               HONORING NASHVILLE'S CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. JIM COOPER

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 11, 2004

  Mr. COOPER. Mr. Speaker, in honor of Black History Month, I am 
pleased to speak today in recognition of Nashville's distinguished role 
in the history of the Civil Rights movement.
  Forty-four years ago this week, a group of young Nashville college 
students came together to organize the Nashville sit-ins, a nonviolent 
campaign to desegregate the city's lunch counters. From that moment in 
1960, and from that campaign's extraordinary leaders, emerged a passion 
for justice and equality that helped to guide the civil rights 
movement.
  Nashville was a principal training ground for some of the nation's 
most important leaders in the civil rights movement, many of whom were 
schooled in the techniques of nonviolent protest by the Rev. James 
Lawson. Rev. Lawson was the second African-American admitted to 
Vanderbilt University's Divinity School, and his famed workshops on 
nonviolent resistance later earned him a reputation as ``the teacher of 
the civil rights movement.''
  Lawson's students came to include such prominent figures as Diane 
Nash, Dr. James Bevel, Dr. Bernard Lafayette, and Rev. C.T. Vivian, as 
well as my distinguished colleague, Congressman John Lewis of Georgia. 
As students and young activists, they formed the organizational core of 
Nashville's civil rights movement, which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 
later described as ``the best organized and most disciplined in the 
Southland.''
  Nashville's lunch-counter protests began on Feb. 13, 1960. Three 
months later, after a dramatic confrontation with then-Mayor Ben West, 
the students earned their first major victory when six Nashville lunch 
counters began serving African-Americans. The Nashville protests came 
to serve as models for later protests throughout the South, and its 
leaders, Ms. Nash, Dr. Bevel, Dr. Lafayette, Rev. Vivian and Mr. Lewis, 
went on to make pivotal contributions to the success of the civil 
rights movement, including the Freedom Rides of 1961 and the historic 
protests in Selma, Alabama.
  This weekend, a number of the original leaders of Nashville's 
movement will be reuniting both to commemorate the anniversary of those 
first organized sit-ins and to honor the opening of the new Civil 
Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library. This library, located at 
615 Church Street in Nashville, now stands in place of several downtown 
restaurants that refused to serve African Americans before the historic 
protests.
  Dr. King best summed up the legacy of the Nashville movement when he 
came to visit shortly after the protests succeeded in desegregating 
Nashville's lunch counters. He said, ``I came to Nashville not to bring 
inspiration, but to gain inspiration from the great movement that has 
taken place in this community.''
  It is with great honor and pride that I pay tribute today to the men 
and women of Nashville whose leadership and courage in the fight for 
racial justice still serve as inspiration to us today.

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