Information

Social Activism and Social Justice
at Pearl High School

The Pearl High School teachers’ involvement in political activities and their quest for civil rights is now somewhat difficult to determine: how does one ascertain the proper course of action for a black teacher of the 1940s working in Southern segregated schools? At a time when Septima Clark was fired from her teacher’s position in Charleston for being a member of the NAACP, the question must be asked, to what degree could an individual teacher or group of teachers challenge segregation and an American apartheid system. The Pearl teachers appear to have been actively involved in providing leadership for the African American community of Nashville; however, they maintained a low profile in terms of their participation in the struggle for black equality as described by all who discussed the topic during 2007 interviews. The general feeling was that Pearl teachers were community and cultural leaders but not open political leaders.

Ella Thompson recalls

“Teachers were in the movement. Pearl was so close to Fisk University.”


“Teachers’ jobs were threatened, but you found a way to do something in the movement: to help transport the Fisk students. Students had an appreciation of what was being done; they knew. This was going to make things better for everyone.”

Ella Thompson

One of the more interesting descriptions of the political activity of Pearl teachers, while occurring after the Secondary School Study, proves prophetic and displays the subtleness of the teachers’ political involvement while fulfilling the administrative and instructional responsibility of the institutional role of a public school educator.

Alice Epperson described the spring of 1960 when students from Nashville’s black colleges—American Baptist, Fisk, Meharry, and Tennessee A&I—participated in staged sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. Pearl High School students also took part in these demonstrations as well as marching downtown in the civil rights protests. When district administrators learned of this, the superintendent contacted the Pearl High School principal and stated that student attendance was to be taken each day during the lunch period, scheduled from 11:30 am-12:30 p.m., which was typically the same time as the downtown marches. On certain days, the Pearl teachers changed the lunch period to 10:30 am so that attendance could be taken and then students could still appear for the marches. As Epperson noted, the teachers did comply with the board of education’s mandate. “They filled the letter of the law but also supported their beliefs for social change.”

Alice Epperson

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