Clarksville Civil Rights Movement

Starting in 1960, African Americans boycotted city buses, restaurants, stores, and theaters. Clarksville native and three-time 1960 Olympic Gold Medalist Wilma Rudolph joined 300 African Americans in protesting a local Shoney's holding the color line from May 27 to May 28, 1963. Three years earlier on October 4, 1960, Clarksville honored Rudolph's victories in the city's first-ever desegregated affair because Rudolph refused to attend their previously planned segregated event. Activists succeeded in desegregating most of the city's restaurants through protests and negotiations brokered by the mayor and Chamber of Commerce. The 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.