Mary Ellen Vaughan

Born in Alabama, in 1893 Mary Ellen Vaughn, a graduate of Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Chicago Business College, and Tennessee A & I (now Tennessee State University), lived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the last thirty years of her life. In 1920 she founded the Murfreesboro Union, the city's first African American newspaper. Continued: Thirteen years later, in 1933 she founded and operated the Vaughn Training School for African American adults. A nurse, Vaughn worked for the Commonwealth Fund to improve rural health in Rutherford County. A major civil rights advocate, she worked diligently to improve political opportunities for African Americans in Rutherford County. Murfreesboro's Vaughn Street is named in her honor.