Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Black Nashville during Slavery Times -- 2. Religion, Education, and the Politics of Slavery and Secession -- 3. The Civil War: "Blue Man's Coming -- 4. Life after Slavery: Progress Despite Poverty and Discrimination -- 5. Business and Culture: A World of Their Own -- 6. On Common Ground: Reading, "Riting," and Arithmetic -- 7. Uplifting the Race: Higher Education -- 8. Churches and Religion: From Paternalism to Maturity -- 9. Politics and Civil Rights: The Black Republicans -- 10. Racial Accommodationism and Protest -- Notes -- Index

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- 1. Black Nashville during Slavery Times -- 2. Religion, Education, and the Politics of Slavery and Secession -- 3. The Civil War: "Blue Man's Coming -- 4. Life after Slavery: Progress Despite Poverty and Discrimination -- 5. Business and Culture: A World of Their Own -- 6. On Common Ground: Reading, "Riting," and Arithmetic -- 7. Uplifting the Race: Higher Education -- 8. Churches and Religion: From Paternalism to Maturity -- 9. Politics and Civil Rights: The Black Republicans -- 10. Racial Accommodationism and Protest -- Notes -- Index

The strange career of Jim Crow : the early civil rights movement in Tennessee, 1935-1950 -- We are not afraid! : Brown and Jim Crow schools in Tennessee -- Hell no, we won't integrate : continuing school desegregation in Tennessee -- Keep Memphis down in Dixie : sit-in demonstrations and desegregation of public facilities -- Let nobody turn me around : sit-ins and public demonstrations continue to spread -- The King God didn't save : the movement turns violent in Tennessee -- The Black Republicans : civil rights and politics in Tennessee -- The Black Democrats : civil rights and politics in Tennessee -- The frustrated fellowship : civil rights and African American politics in Tennessee -- Make Tennessee state equivalent to UT for white students : desegregation of higher education -- After Geier and the merger : desegregation of higher education in Tennessee continues -- Don't you wish you were white? : the conclusion.

Among Nashville's many slogans, the one that best reflects its emphasis on manners and decorum is the Nashville Way, a phrase coined by boosters to tout what they viewed as the city's amicable race relations. Benjamin Houston offers the first scholarly book on the history of civil rights in Nashville, providing new insights and critiques of this moderate progressivism for which the city has long been credited. Civil rights leaders such as John Lewis, James Bevel, Diane Nash, and James Lawson who came into their own in Nashville were devoted to nonviolent direct action, or what Houston calls the “black Nashville Way.” Through the dramatic story of Nashville's 1960 lunch counter sit-ins, Houston shows how these activists used nonviolence to disrupt the coercive script of day-to-day race relations. Nonviolence brought the threat of its opposite—white violence—into stark contrast, revealing that the Nashville Way was actually built on a complex relationship between etiquette and brute force. Houston goes on to detail how racial etiquette forged in the era of Jim Crow was updated in the civil rights era. Combined with this updated racial etiquette, deeper structural forces of politics and urban renewal dictate racial realities to this day. In The Nashville Way, Houston shows that white power was surprisingly adaptable. But the black Nashville Way also proved resilient as it was embraced by thousands of activists who continued to fight battles over schools, highway construction, and economic justice even after most Americans shifted their focus to southern hotspots like Birmingham and Memphis.

Alphabetically-arranged entries from O to T that explores significant events, major persons, organizations, and political and social movements in African-American history from 1896 to the twenty-first-century.

It is impossible to understand America without understanding the history of African Americans. In nearly seven hundred entries, the Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895 documents the full range of the African American experience during that period - from the arrival of the first slave ship to the death of Frederick Douglass - and shows how all aspects of American culture, history, and national identity have been profoundly influenced by the experience of African Americans.The Encyclopedia covers an extraordinary range of subjects. Major topics such as "Abolitionism," "Black Nationalism," the "Civil War," the "Dred Scott case," "Reconstruction," "Slave Rebellions and Insurrections," the "Underground Railroad," and "Voting Rights" are given the in-depth treatment one would expect. But the encyclopedia also contains hundreds of fascinating entries on less obvious subjects, such as the "African Grove Theatre," "Black Seafarers," "Buffalo Soldiers," the "Catholic Church and African Americans," "Cemeteries and Burials," "Gender," "Midwifery," "New York African Free Schools," "Oratory and Verbal Arts," "Religion and Slavery," the "Secret Six," and much more. In addition, the Encyclopedia offers brief biographies of important African Americans - as well as white Americans who have played a significant role in African American history - from Crispus Attucks, John Brown, and Henry Ward Beecher to Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Sarah Grimke, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner, Phillis Wheatley, and many others.All of the Encyclopedia's alphabetically arranged entries are accessibly written and free of jargon and technical terms. To facilitate ease of use, many composite entries gather similar topics under one headword. The entry for Slave Narratives, for example, includes three subentries: The Slave Narrative in America from the Colonial Period to the Civil War, Interpreting Slave Narratives, and African and British Slave Narratives. A headnote detailing the various subentries introduces each composite entry. Selective bibliographies and cross-references appear at the end of each article to direct readers to related articles within the Encyclopedia and to primary sources and scholarly works beyond it. A topical outline, chronology of major events, nearly 300 black and white illustrations, and comprehensive index further enhance the work's usefulness.