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To honor Civil Rights leader Diane Nash, Nashville leaders pivot from naming a park to a plaza

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Rev C T Vivian
Courtesy Nashville Public Library, Special Collections
This 1960 photo shows Rev. C.T. Vivian (center) and Diane Nash (right) speaking to Nashville Mayor Ben West.
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After a failed attempt to rename a Nashville park after civil rights icon Diane Nash, a member of the Metro Council is trying a different approach.

This time, Councilmember Nancy VanReece is introducing legislation to name the plaza in front of the city’s historic courthouse after Nash. The prominent site provides entry into city hall and several floors of courtrooms, and is often the site of rallies and demonstrations. It’s also a place central to her legacy.

As a Fisk University student, Diane Nash became a key player in the Nashville Student Movement.

She led thousands of activists to the steps in front of the courthouse in 1960 to confront Mayor Ben West — asking him if he felt it was wrong for businesses to discriminate based on race.

West said he did think it was wrong, and the next month downtown lunch counters agreed to desegregate.

It was an early victory in a movement that Nash has remained committed to for decades.

VanReece says it’s important to honor the city’s civil rights leaders while they are still alive. The legislation will go through metro council’s usual review process before it can be voted on.

Paige Pfleger, Criminal Justice Reporter

Paige Pfleger covers criminal justice for WPLN News. She has investigated guns and juvenile justice as a fellow with ProPublica's Local Reporting Network, and her investigation into domestic violence and firearms dispossession won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was a finalist for an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and a Livingston Award. She previously covered criminal justice and addiction in Ohio and was named the state's reporter of the year by the Associated Press. Her work has appeared nationally on NPR, The Washington Post, Marketplace, and PRI's The World, and she has worked in the newsrooms of The Tennessean, Michigan Radio, WHYY, Vox and NPR headquarters in DC.

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