(1913 – February 11, 1994)
from The Greenwood Project
A.Z. Kelley came home from the Navy, opened Kelley’s Barber Shop, taught a few classes at Bowman’s Barber College, sang in his church choir, and became the first black secretary of the local barbers’ union. He and his wife Robbie had four beloved children, and they were delighted when the Supreme Court ordered the schools to desegregate. But when Robert, their 14-year-old, was turned away from neighboring East Junior High and sent across town to Pearl, a black school, Kelley became lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against Nashville city schools (1955). His attorneys were Z.A. Looby, Avon Williams Jr., and Thurgood Marshall (soon to become the first African American Supreme Court Justice). All four men died before Kelley v Board of Education, Tennessee’s longest-running school desegregation case, was finally settled in 1998. Meanwhile, Kelley took part in the 1963 march on Washington, served a term as president of the local NAACP chapter, and was Sergeant-at-Arms of the Tennessee State Senate.
Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Attorney Z. A. Looby, and Alfred Z. Kelley (Photo courtesy of Metro Nashville Public Schools)
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The Greenwood Project is a series of 160-word biographies of individuals who lie at rest in Mt. Ararat and Greenwood cemeteries, two historic African American burial grounds in Nashville, Tennessee. The project, which began in September 2014 (and is still available on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064806156276), shares the stories of more than 300 consequential individuals, primarily African American, who changed the course of city, state, and national history through their words and deeds. (All biographies were written by Kathy Lauder unless otherwise noted.)
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