WADE IN THESE WATERS

Centennial Park holds a special place in the history of Nashville and the hearts of our community.  From providing a natural environment for Nashvillians to congregate, recreate and relax to its origins as the site of the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition, the park represents an important community meeting place and is culturally significant to our growing city. However, uncomfortable truths exist in the history of the Centennial Park, including the inequitable segregation that prevented Nashville’s Black community from accessing this public land for decades. In 1961, two young African-American men, the late civil rights activists Kwame Lillard and Matthew Walker, decided to go swimming in the municipal pool located in Centennial Park, one that was reserved by Jim Crow for whites only. Days later, the city closed all its public pools and left them shut for three years. Centennial Park’s pool was later filled with cement and later became the Centennial Arts Center. Centennial Park was integrated in the mid-1960s and has since become a public space where all Nashville residents and visitors can congregate and connect.

Centennial Park Conservancy and Metro Parks explored the injustice of the park’s past at a 2018 symposium Wade In These Waters, which spotlighted the intersection of the general history of Centennial Park as viewed by “white” Nashville with the Nashville viewed under the lens of our African American citizens, a largely overlooked local history.

CPC Board Member, Phyllis Hildreth of American Baptist College, moderated the discussion that included Howard Gentry, Criminal Court Clerk; the late Dr. Reavis Mitchell, Fisk Dean of History; David Ewing, Nashville historian; and Monique Odom, Director of Metro Parks. The panelists discussed various experiences including when the city closed and later filled in the public swimming pool at Centennial Park rather than integrate it. The official explanation given for the closing of this and other city pools was the lack of funding. However, civil rights demonstrations were in progress at the time, and it is the opinion of some that Mayor Ben West and the Park Board ordered the pools closed in the 1960’s to avoid the protests and other disturbances that had occurred in other cities when swimming pools were integrated. Kwame Lillard joined the panelists for an impromptu discussion about his personal experience in Nashville’s civil rights history.

On March 23, 2022, a long overdue historical marker will be unveiled in Centennial Park to recognize the location of the Park's former swimming pool and honor the brave young men who tried to integrate it.