CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Leadership is never easy. Putting yourself out there at the risk of public criticism, insult or failure can be uncomfortable. But when you’re Black – particularly during the Jim Crow or civil rights era in the South – those risks go well beyond discomfort. In honor of Black History Month, let’s look back at not just at the “firsts” in local history, and not just at athletes and artists, but to leaders who took the risks and rose to the top to make Clarksville a better place for everyone.
Here are 10 Black leaders (in alphabetical order) who during their lifetimes helped to shape our community and deserve to be remembered for their role in Clarksville history.
1. Geneva Bell
Uncovered Mount Olive Cemetery
For several years in Clarksville, Genevia (“Geneva”) Ann Bell was a one-woman whirlwind of advocacy and altruism. In 2001, when she was 60 years old, just a year after getting her GED, Bell was taking a history class at Austin Peay State University and learned out about Mount Olive Cemetery. She went to visit the Black cemetery off of Rollins Drive and was shocked to find it covered in debris and garbage, having been largely ignored and forgotten for decades. It contains more than 1,300 graves, some dating to the early 1800s. Among those buried there are freed slaves and 25 Black Civil War soldiers. Bell founded the Mount Olive Cemetery Historical Preservation Society and solicited help over the years from Austin Peay State University, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ROTC groups and more. The cemetery is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Bell moved to Clarksville in the 19990s from California, where she was active in 4-H programs and efforts to help at-risk youth. As early as 1998, Bell organized annual Make A Difference Day events in Clarksville with projects organized around a new community garden, health fairs, grandparent support, bone marrow donation and more. In 2007, Bell was honored with a $10,000 grant from USA Weekend magazine for a Make a Difference Day event that created scholarships to help people get their GED. Bell died Sept. 25, 2018, at the age of 77. She is remembered in a historic marker at Mount Olive Cemetery.
2. General Quarles Boyd
Ground-breaking attorney, early Republican leader
General Quarles (G.Q.) Boyd, born in 1865 with the first name “General,” was the first Black attorney in Montgomery County and a leader in early efforts to organize Black political power. He attended Wilberforce University and then studied at the Tennessee Supreme Court in the office of Justice Horace Lurton, and locally in the office of Cave Johnson. He appears to have started his local law practice in the early 1890s. Not long after, Boyd became leader of the local Republican Party, standing up candidates for county office and being nominated to run for Congress. On Aug. 23, 1897, at only 32 years old, he was murdered by someone with a personal grudge. He was remembered in an otherwise hostile Leaf-Chronicle editorial as having “attained more prominence than any of his race has ever attained in this county.” Just days after his death, he had been scheduled to speak at the Nashville Centennial, where he was remembered as one of the best lawyers in Tennessee.
Today, Boyd is memorialized in the name of the General Q. Boyd Elks Lodge 457, the name of the Montgomery County Court Center’s Bar Association Room and in the cornerstone of St. Peter’s AME Church.
3. Susie Brown
Education leader, community advocate…