The Hattie Cotton Elementary School bombing on September 10, 1957 was a destructive bombing by pro-segregationists of an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee shortly after it admitted its first African American student in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. [1] The school is now known as Hattie Cotton STEM Magnet Elementary School, and focuses on science, technology, engineering and math for students in grades kindergarten through five. [2]
Hattie Cotton Elementary School opened September 1, 1950 at 1033 W. Greenwood Ave. in East Nashville. Built by George E. Reese and designed by Marr & Holman architectural firm, [3] the school was located west of Gallatin Pike to help students avoid the highway. [4]
The school is named after Hattie R. Cotton, a Nashville educator who taught the chairman of the city board of education. She became a teacher in 1905 and was named the city's academic supervisor in 1919. She died two years after her retirement in 1926. [3]
Hattie Cotton became an integrated school in 1957, following the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education , which set in motion the integration of American schools. After a court order in January 1957, Nashville adopted what became known as The Nashville Plan in the fall. The plan was to begin with integration at six city elementary schools [5] — Bailey, Buena Vista, Fehr, Glenn, Hattie Cotton, and Jones — which were to integrate one grade level per year. [6] That process began Sept. 9, 1957, when 19 black six-year-olds attempted to attend their first day of school. Four were denied for administrative reasons. [7]
Hattie Cotton admitted one black student, a 6-year-old black girl. Following the first day of school, dynamite exploded just after midnight, early on Sept. 10, 1957, rocking the neighborhood. The school reopened nine days later and repairs followed in 1958. [8]
In the early 1990s, the original building was torn down and construction of a new building began, reopening on April 9, 1996. [9] The school became a STEM-based magnet school in 2011. [10]
The dynamiting of Hattie Cotton Elementary School on September 10, 1957, "tore down walls, knocked out every window in the modern one-story structure," and caused at least $71,000 (equivalent to $588,953 in 2023 [11] ) in damage to the library, classrooms, interior walls and lockers. [1] [12]
The attack triggered a response from local civic leaders and members of the Nashville Student Movement. Nashville Police Chief Douglass E. Hosse said that the incident, "has gone beyond a matter of integration. These people [segregationists] have ignored the laws and they have shown no regard for you [whites] or any citizen." [13]
Rev. Kelly Miller Smith and Rev. Will Campbell held a community meeting that showed, "the bombing had touched off all the stored-up rage in the black community. Speaker after speaker got up and denounced the bombing and demanded some kind of reprisal. There was talk of guns and retaliation. For most of the evening, Smith let the meeting go on without challenging the speakers. It was as if he knew that he had to let the rage vent itself." Smith eventually spoke: "We can go forward as planned and try to show them the right way." [5]
Hattie Cotton reopened nine days later without the 6-year-old girl, whose mother transferred her to the all-black Head Elementary School in North Nashville. [14]
Despite several weeks of investigation, a $7,000 (equivalent to $58,066 in 2023 [11] ) cash reward for information, [14] and the detaining of at least six suspects, [15] no one was ever charged in the school bombing. [16]
Nationally known segregationist John Kasper was questioned but never charged. He was described by police as playing a role in securing a cache of dynamite two days before the bombing at Hattie Cotton. [17]
Kasper was later convicted, in November 1958, for inciting a riot on the first day of school in Nashville. At a rally, Kasper predicted "blood will run in the streets of Nashville before Negro children go to school with white." [18] [19]
Out of the first six Nashville schools to integrate — Bailey, Buena Vista, Fehr, Glenn, Hattie Cotton, and Jones — most remain open today.
Hattie Cotton STEM Magnet Elementary School emphasizes science, technology, engineering and math education. The school partners with Vanderbilt University for science instruction and project-based learning. [2]
Hoxie is a city in Lawrence County, Arkansas, United States. It lies immediately south of Walnut Ridge. The population was 2,780 at the 2010 census.
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Ronald Norwood Davies was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota. He is best known for his role in the Little Rock Integration Crisis in the fall of 1957. Davies ordered the desegregation of the previously all-white Little Rock Central High.
The Nashville sit-ins, which lasted from February 13 to May 10, 1960, were part of a protest to end racial segregation at lunch counters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The sit-in campaign, coordinated by the Nashville Student Movement and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, was notable for its early success and its emphasis on disciplined nonviolence. It was part of a broader sit-in movement that spread across the southern United States in the wake of the Greensboro sit-ins in North Carolina.
Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee, is the Anderson County, Tennessee, high school that serves students living in and near Clinton, Oliver Springs, and Claxton. As of 2024 students at the school are about 88 percent white and 12 percent other groups including blacks and hispanics.
Zephaniah Alexander Looby was a lawyer in Nashville, Tennessee, who was active in the civil rights movement. Born in the British West Indies, he immigrated to the United States at the age of 15; he earned degrees at Howard University, Columbia University Law School and New York University.
The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple bombing occurred on October 12, 1958, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple, on Peachtree Street, housed a Reform Jewish congregation. The building was damaged extensively by the dynamite-fueled explosion, although no one was injured. Five suspects were arrested almost immediately after the bombing. One of them, George Bright, was tried twice. His first trial ended with a hung jury and his second with an acquittal. As a result of Bright's acquittal, the other suspects were not tried, and no one was ever convicted of the bombing.
Metro Nashville Public Schools, or MNPS, is a school district that serves the city of Nashville, Tennessee and Davidson County. As of the 2020–21 school year more than 80,000 students were enrolled in the district's 162 schools.
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John Kasper was an American politician, Ku Klux Klan member, and a segregationist who took a militant stand against racial integration during the civil rights movement.
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This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included securing equal protection under the law, ending legally institutionalized racial discrimination, and gaining equal access to public facilities, education reform, fair housing, and the ability to vote.
Tennessee School for the Blind is a K–12 school for blind children in Clover Bottom, Nashville, Tennessee. It is overseen by the Tennessee Department of Education.
Theresa Julienna Sherrer Davidson was an American classicist, lawyer, law librarian, and artist.
The Clinton 12 were a group of twelve African-American students who integrated the previously all white Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee in 1956. These students were some of the first to participate in desegregation of southern K–12 public schools following the 1954 Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education. The Clinton 12 were subject to discrimination and violence for attending the all-white high school, which caused some of them to leave the school and move to other states. The integration of Clinton High School caused turmoil in both its Black and white communities. Out of the original twelve, only two students of the group ended up graduating from the school. The twelve original students were Jo Ann Allen, Bobby Cain, Anna Theresser Caswell, Gail Ann Epps, Minnie Ann Dickey, Ronald Gordon Hayden, William Latham, Alvah Jay McSwain, Maurice Soles, Robert Thacker, Regina Turner, and Alfred Williams.
Between November 11, 1957, and October 14, 1958, there were five bombings and three attempted bombings of synagogues, seven in the Southern United States and one in the Midwest United States. There were no deaths or injuries.
