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On June 3, 1850, delegates from nine southern states met at McKendree Methodist Church in Nashville to discuss common grievances in the great sectional crisis that had developed with the territorial acquisitions following the Mexican War. The South demanded equality…

The Nashville Film Festival was born in 1969 of a utopian idea: to create a forum for small, independent films shown in a community setting. The festival was founded on a farm in East Tennessee by Mary Jane Coleman, who…

Founded in 1906, the Nashville Globe promoted self-reliance and racial solidarity as the best means for Nashville's African American community to succeed and prosper within the confines of the Jim Crow South. After an editorial run that lasted more than…

Nashville has rightfully earned the moniker “Music City, USA.” With the abundance of musicians living in the area, music aficionados can walk into any dive bar, theater, cafe, coffee shop, restaurant, nightclub, motel, or concert hall on any given night…

The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) was founded in Nashville on September 10, 1894, and Nashville No. 1 became the first chapter to apply for membership, thus earning the coveted designation of the "mother chapter." The local unit was…

The first professional hockey team in Tennessee to be a member of the National Hockey League (NHL) was the Nashville Predators. Professional ice hockey has been played in Nashville since the early 1960s, when the Nashville Dixie Flyers were members…

The Nashville recording industry actually began after World War II, although there were several earlier events and factors that played a significant role in its success. During the 1920s and 1930s recording executives traveled across the country, making field recordings…

This Nashville newspaper traces its origins to the Nashville Whig, begun by Joseph and Moses Norvell in 1812, when the city had a population of twelve hundred. The Whig survived more than a dozen mergers and consolidations to eventually become…

The Nashville Trades and Labor Council, organized in 1890, was most responsible for the passage of the Tennessee child labor law and the local barber's Sunday closing law. Composed of three delegates from the different unions in Nashville, the Council…

This National Historic Landmark symbolizes the power of railroad companies, specifically the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad, over the transportation and economy of turn-of-the-century Tennessee. Built between 1898 and 1900, and designed by L&N company engineer Richard Montfort, the building…

The battle of Nashville, fought December 15-16, 1864, continued the destruction of the Confederate Army of Tennessee that had begun when it suffered devastating casualties at Franklin. After that engagement, army commander John Bell Hood faced limited options. A withdrawal…

From the port of Natchez on the Mississippi River, the Natchez Trace followed over 500 miles of intertwining Indian paths through the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations across the Tennessee River to Nashville. For reasons of national security, Winthrop Sargent, first…

The Natchez Trace Parkway, a unit of the National Park Service since May 18, 1938, commemorates the historical significance of the Old Natchez Trace, which served as a frontier road linking Nashville through the wilderness to Natchez, Mississippi. The Parkway…

Covering 12,096 acres, Natchez Trace State Park is located approximately five miles east of Wildersville. In combination with the Natchez Trace State Forest, which includes nearly 36,000 acres in Henderson, Carroll, and Benton Counties, the two sites comprise West Tennessee's…

This important national organization for civil rights began in 1909 in protest of violent forms of racism, including lynching; of racial segregation; and of disfranchisement of African American voters. Events and people from Tennessee played a major role in its…

The National Association of Free Will Baptists, an organization of evangelical churches, has maintained its headquarters in Nashville since its formation in 1935. A derivative of Arminian or "general" Baptists, the denomination arose in the United States in the early…

The National Baptist Convention, founded in 1895, has since spawned four different denominations that have roots in the original convention. It formed originally as a combination of three separate organizations--the American National Baptist Convention, the Baptist Foreign Mission Convention, and…

Chartered in 1896 by Richard H. Boyd and a group of black businessmen and fully operational by 1898, the National Baptist Publishing Board grew in the twentieth century to be the largest black publishing enterprise in the United States. Located…

The National Campground, located in rural Loudon County, has held religious camp meetings since the late Reconstruction era. In 1873 individuals from congregations representing the Presbyterian, Cumberland Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Friends (Quakers), and the Methodist Episcopal Church…

The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains 114 National Cemeteries in thirty-eight states and Puerto Rico (as well as thirty-three "soldiers' lots" and monument sites). Five cemeteries are in Tennessee: Chattanooga National Cemetery, Mountain Home National Cemetery, Knoxville National Cemetery, Nashville…