Tommie Morton-Young

Last updated
Tommie Morton-Young
Education
Occupation(s) Librarian, professor, historian

Tommie Morton-Young is an educator, activist, author, and historian. After becoming the first African-American to graduate from George Peabody College for Teachers, she went on to work as a librarian and professor in both education and library science. Her human rights activism and work preserving African American history has earned her recognition by a number of organizations in Tennessee.

Contents

Education and career as educator

A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Morton-Young attended public schools and earned her undergraduate degree cum laude from Tennessee State University. [1] She was the first African American to graduate from George Peabody College for Teachers (later Peabody College of Vanderbilt University), earning her Master of Library Science in 1955. [1] She completed a Ph.D. in social psychology from Duke University in 1977. [2]

Morton-Young has worked at a number of government and higher education organizations, including researching for the U.S. Navy Library and transliterating Russian at the Library of Congress. [1] She worked as an administrator and a professor of education and library and information science at a number of universities, including Atlanta University, Tennessee State University, the University of Wisconsin, North Carolina State University, North Carolina Central University and North Carolina A&T State University. [1] She retired as a full professor from the University of North Carolina system. [1]

Activism and advocacy work

In 1979 Morton-Young founded the North Carolina African American Genealogical and Historical Society; she founded the Tennessee African American Genealogical and Historical Society in 1994. [3] She served as director of the NAACP's Parent Education/Child Advocacy Project. [4] Morton-Young co-chaired the Greensboro Coalition for Unity & Justice, a group of community activists that held demonstrations against the Ku Klux Klan in 1987. [5]

As chairperson of the North Carolina Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, she initiated hearings on pay equity for women and minorities and school placement of students. [1] [6] During her twenty years on that committee she also contributed to a United States Department of Labor study on migrant workers. [7] [8]

Morton-Young has written books on a variety of subjects, including on works on after-school activities for at-risk children, Tennessee history, and African-American history and genealogy. [2] One of her most notable books is the 1987 Afro-American genealogy sourcebook, an early work in African-American genealogy. [7] She is the owner and operator of a tour company that focuses on the African-American history of Nashville. [2]

Recognition and awards

Morton-Young was recognized for her human rights activism in 2010 by the Nashville Cordell Hull Chapter of the United Nations Association of the United States of America. [6]

She received the Peabody College Distinguished Alumna Award in 2010; Peabody Dean of Education Camilla Benbow praised her for using "her education to strengthen the lives of children, families and communities, especially those who too often are marginalized". [1]

In 2013 the Tennessee Human Rights Commission honored her advancement of human and civil rights "through her career as an educator, through activism and her preservation of African American genealogy". [9] Other recognition includes a 2006 Athena Award from Nashville CABLE (commending professional women), the 2010 Legacy Award from the Scarritt Bennett Center for efforts in eradicating racism, and the Tennessee Achievement Award (from Governor Don Sundquist). [8] [7]

The Dr. Tommie Morton Young Award is awarded each year to a Vanderbilt University student who demonstrates dedication to community service. [10] [11]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fisk University</span> Historically black university in Nashville, Tennessee, US

Fisk University is a private historically black liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. It was founded in 1866 and its 40-acre (16 ha) campus is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanderbilt University</span> Private university in Nashville, Tennessee, US

Vanderbilt University is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and railroad magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1 million endowment in the hopes that his gift and the greater work of the university would help to heal the sectional wounds inflicted by the American Civil War. Vanderbilt is a founding member of the Southeastern Conference and has been the conference's only private school since 1966.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Lawson (activist)</span> American activist (1928–2024)

James Morris Lawson Jr. was an American activist and university professor. He was a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights Movement. During the 1960s, he served as a mentor to the Nashville Student Movement and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He was expelled from Vanderbilt University for his civil rights activism in 1960, and later served as a pastor in Los Angeles for 25 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James D. Porter</span> American politician

James Davis Porter was an American attorney, politician, educator, and officer of the Confederate Army. He served as the 20th Governor of Tennessee from 1875 to 1879. He was subsequently appointed as Assistant Secretary of State during President Grover Cleveland's first administration, and Minister to Chile in Cleveland's second administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development</span> Education school of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee

Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development is the education school of Vanderbilt University, a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1875, Peabody had a long history as an independent institution before merging with Vanderbilt University in 1979. The school is located on the Peabody Campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The academic and administrative buildings surround the Peabody Esplanade and are southeast of Vanderbilt's main campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centennial Park (Nashville)</span> City park in Nashville, Tennessee, US

Centennial Park is a large urban park located approximately two miles west of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States, across West End Avenue from the campus of Vanderbilt University. The 21st-century headquarters campus of the Hospital Corporation of America was developed adjacent to the park.

University of Nashville was a private university in Nashville, Tennessee. It was established in 1806 as Cumberland College. It existed as a distinct entity until 1909; operating at various times a medical school, a four-year military college, a literary arts college, and a boys preparatory school. Educational institutions in operation today that can trace their roots to the University of Nashville include Montgomery Bell Academy, an all-male preparatory school; the Vanderbilt University Medical School; Peabody College at Vanderbilt University; and the University School of Nashville, a co-educational preparatory school.

The Western Military Institute was a preparatory school and college located first in Kentucky, then in Tennessee. It was founded in 1847 in Georgetown, Kentucky, and it later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where it merged with Montgomery Bell Academy in 1867. The former campus is now Vanderbilt University's Peabody College. Alumni include prominent Confederate veterans and Southern politicians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. Alexander Heard</span>

George Alexander Heard was chancellor of Vanderbilt University from 1963 to 1982. He was also a political scientist and adviser to U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard Nixon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harvie Branscomb</span> American academic

Bennett Harvie Branscomb was an American theologian and academic administrator. He served as the fourth chancellor of Vanderbilt University, a private university in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1946 to 1963. Prior to his appointment at Vanderbilt, he was the director of the Duke University Libraries and dean of the Duke Divinity School. Additionally, he served as a professor of Christian theology at Southern Methodist University. He was the author of several books about New Testament theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carol M. Swain</span> Political scientist

Carol Miller Swain is an American political scientist and legal scholar who is a retired professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. She is a frequent television analyst and has authored and edited several books. Her interests include race relations, immigration, representation, evangelical politics, and the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scarritt College for Christian Workers</span> United States historic place

Scarritt College for Christian Workers was a college associated with the United Methodist Church in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. The campus is now home to Scarritt Bennett Center.

Constance Bumgarner Gee is an American scholar, memoirist, animal rights activist, and advocate of the medical use of cannabis. She was the founder and director of the Arts Policy and Administration Program at Ohio State University, and later an assistant professor at Brown University and tenured associate professor at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Higher Education: Marijuana at the Mansion, a 2012 memoir about her life as "first lady" of several American research universities, in which she writes of the no-holds barred corporate maneuverings of university leadership and hypocrisy of those who present themselves and their universities as society's moral beacons.

Sidney Clarence Garrison (1885–1945) was an American educator and psychologist. He served as the second President of Peabody College from 1938 to 1945. He was the (co-)author of several books about education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Salynn McCollum</span> American civil rights activist

Mary Salynn (Selyn) McCollum was the only white female Freedom Rider during the leg from Nashville, Tennessee to Birmingham, Alabama on May 17, 1961.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Lee Bloomstein</span> American historian

Elizabeth Lee Bloomstein was an American history professor, university librarian, clubwoman, and suffragist based in Nashville, Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernice Robinson</span> American Civil Rights activist and educator

Bernice Robinson (1914–1994) was an American activist in the Civil Rights Movement and education proponent who helped establish adult Citizenship Schools in South Carolina. Becoming field supervisor of adult education for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), she led political education workshops throughout the south, in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and other states to teach adult reading skills so that blacks would be able to pass literacy tests to vote. Between 1970 and 1975, Robinson worked for the South Carolina Commission for Farm Workers, supervising VISTA workers and directing day care centers. In both 1972 and 1974, she unsuccessfully ran for the South Carolina House of Representatives, becoming the first African American woman to run for a political office in the state.

Jessie Carney Smith is an American librarian and educator, formerly Dean of the Fisk University Library and Camille Cosby Distinguished Chair in the Humanities. She was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. degree in library science from the University of Illinois. She is also a scholar and author of research guides and reference books focusing on notable African-American people.

Rita Geier is an American civil rights pioneer, attorney at law, and public servant. As a professor at Tennessee State University, she was the original plaintiff in a landmark lawsuit that lead to the racial integration of higher education throughout the State of Tennessee.

Sylvia Lyons Render was an American academic and curator. Recognized for her expertise in the life and writings of Charles W. Chestnutt, Render was the first African American to earn a doctoral degree from the Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and the first person to hold the position of manuscript curator in African American history at the Library of Congress.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Tommie Morton-Young Receives Peabody Award". Vanderbilt University. 22 August 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 "Tommie Morton Young (MALS'55)" (PDF). Peabody Reflector. Vanderbilt University: 34. Spring 2006. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  3. ↑ Morton-Young, Tommie (2000). Nashville, Tennessee. Arcadia Publishing. p. 40. ISBN   9780738506265.
  4. ↑ "9-to-5 People". Greensboro News & Record. 24 November 1992. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  5. ↑ Treadwell, David (6 June 1987). "Klan, Foes to March Again in City Where 5 Died". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  6. 1 2 "Human Rights Day Celebration 2010". UNA-USA Nashville Cordell Hull Chapter. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 "International Human Rights Day 2010 Program Information and Human Rights Resource Guide" (PDF), Tennessee United for Human Rights, Tennessee Human Rights Commission, p. 8, retrieved 12 December 2018
  8. 1 2 "NPT to Air "The South and the Civil War" Program Next Month". The Tennessee Tribune. 24–30 January 2013. p. 6A. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  9. ↑ Berry, Susannah (1 March 2013). "Tennessee Human Rights Commission Celebrates 50th Anniversary" (PDF) (Press release). Nashville: Tennessee Human Rights Commission. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  10. ↑ "Briana Perry - 2017 Nominee". 120 Under 40. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
  11. ↑ "Michael McGee". LinkedIn. Retrieved 12 December 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.