Tag: Tennessee State Senate

Avon Nyanza Williams Jr. (GW016)

December 22, 1921 – August 29, 1994

from The Greenwood Project

Knoxville native Avon Williams earned an L.L.B. (1947) and an L.L.M. (1948) from Boston University. After interning with attorney Z. A. Looby in Nashville, he set up a law practice in Knoxville, often working closely with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He filed Tennessee’s first school desegregation case (Anderson County, 1950), and his lawsuit to admit African American students to the UT graduate school (1951) was one of seven discrimination cases he argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1953 he moved to Nashville, partnered with Looby, and took an active (and mostly unpaid) role in civil rights cases ranging from lunch counter and school desegregation to housing discrimination. A founder of the Davidson County Independent Political Council and the Tennessee Voters Council, he was one of Tennessee’s first two African American state senators, serving from 1969-1990. His lawsuit to merge UT Nashville with TSU led to a landmark legal decision and the renaming of the downtown campus after him.

Avon Nyanza Williams Jr. (Photo from Avon Williams Manuscript Collection, Tennessee State University)

Avon N. Williams Jr. Marker from Historical Marker Database, Darren Jefferson Clay photo

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Full text of historical marker pictured above, side A: “A native of Knoxville, Tennessee, Avon N. Williams, Jr., was an attorney, statewide civil rights leader, politician, educator, and a founder of the Davidson County Independent Political Council and the Tennessee Voters Council. In 1950, as a cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, he and attorneys Z. Alexander Looby and Carl Cowan filed and successfully litigated McSwain v. Board of Anderson County, Tennessee, the first public school desegregation case in the state. Side B: “Assisting in every school desegregation case statewide except Shelby County, he was counsel for the plaintiff intervenors in the Tennessee State University / University of Tennessee at Nashville merger suit. In 1979, under federal court order, UTN merged with TSU. Williams was elected to the state legislature in 1968, becoming the first African-American state senator from Nashville to serve as a member of the Tennessee General Assembly. He represented the 19th district for more than 20 years, serving as a member of the 86th through the 96th General Assembly of Tennessee.”

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.)

Alfred Z. Kelley (GW010)

(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)

A. Z. Kelley marker on Blairfield Dr., Antioch, Tennessee. (from Historical Marker Database, photographed by Darren Jefferson Clay)

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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.)