This page will become a bibliography of black history & genealogy for Nashville, TN. It will be growing over time and is by no means ever going to be exhaustive.
Civil Rights
- Halberstam, David. The Children. New York: Random House International, 1999. [Find in a Library]
General History Sources:
- Lovett, Bobby L. The African-American History of Nashville, Tennessee, 1780-1930 Elites and Dilemmas. Black community studies. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1999. [Searchable online via Google Books | Find in a library]
- Lovett, Bobby L., and Linda T. Wynn. Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee. Nashville, Tenn: Annual Local Conference on Afro-American Culture and History, 1996. [Full-text available online | Find in a library]
- Morton-Young, Tommie. Nashville, Tennessee. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2000. [Limited information via Google Books | Find in a library]
- Nashville Directories – 1856, 1859, 1860, 1880, 1881, 1924. (these are all free)
- Nashville Directories —1879-1889 are available with subscription at Ancestry.com.
School Specific Resources
- Fisk University. Catalogue of the students and officers of Fisk University. Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce Co., 1898. Full book available via Google Books.
- Fisk University. Catalogue of the students and officers of Fisk University. Nashville, TN: Marshall & Bruce Co., 1912. Full book available via Google Books.
- Cohen, Rodney T. Fisk University. College history series. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Pub, 2001. [Find in a Library]
- Collins, Leslie Morgan. One Hundred Years of Fisk University Presidents: 1875-1975; Cravath, Merrill, Gates, McKenzie, Jones, Johnson, Wright, Lawson. Nashville, Tennessee: Hemphill’s Creative Printing, Inc, 1989. [Find in a Library]
- Meharry Catalogs, Announcements, News 1881-1912 (with some gaps in years) – available online.
- Roman, C. V. Meharry Medical College A History. Nashville: National Baptist Convention, 1934. [Find in a Library]
- Ward, Andrew. Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Jubilee Singers Who Introduced the World to the Music of Black America. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000. [Find in a Library]
Newspaper Articles
- “When McKissack & McKissack Received Award”. Chicago Defender. 7 Nov 1942. p.6, col. 2
- “From a Mite to A Million: Story of the McKissicks“. Chicago Defender. 7 Nov 1942. p. 6, col. 2.
Other Articles
- Lamon C. The Black Community in Nashville and the Fisk University Student Strike of 1924-1925. The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 40, No. 2 (May, 1974), pp. 225-244. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/2206893>
State-wide Tennessee Resources
- Lamon, Lester C. Blacks in Tennessee, 1791-1970. Tennessee three star books. Knoxville: Published in cooperation with the Tennessee Historical Commission [by] the University of Tennessee Press, 1981. [Find in a Library]
- Cimprich, John. Slavery’s End in Tennessee, 1861 to 1865. New York: University of Alabama P, 1985. [Find in a Library]
Black Nashville Genealogy & History 
Roland Mills
/ December 4, 2009I’m looking for information on Pastor William Sampson Brooks and his wife Susan R. Brooks in Nashville, Tenn. about 1910. Pastor Brooks was an AME pastor who known for settling AME church debts.
I am currently writing his biography. A high school in Calvert County, Md. was named in his honor in 1938 because he was the most well know black in Calvert County, Md.