Historical marker honors students who led desegregation efforts at East Nashville school

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – A historic landmark in East Nashville is honoring four courageous students who led high school desegregation efforts.

Stratford High School opened in East Nashville in 1961 and it was the last high school established by the Davidson County School Board prior to Metro’s consolidation. In 1963, black students Pamela Franklin, Beverly Page Ward, Bernadine Price Rabathaly, and Brenda Harris Haywood enrolled as 7th graders under the Nashville Desegregation “Grade-A-Year” plan.

That was an experience Ward told News 2 she would remember forever.

“The one thing that sticks in my mind is the three of us walked into the gym and at that point I think it was 7th through 11th grade,” Ward said. “All we heard was the N-word and going home and stuff.”

Rabathaly recalled her emotions that day as she walked among a crowd of protesters who gathered at the school entrance before the first bell.

“(It was) really scary, because we’re, what, 12 years old?” Rabathly said. “You walk down the hall and you have all the cameras and people there and a lot of people weren’t very happy about that.”

The former students said they carried Bibles in their backpacks and trusted their parents’ decision to send them to school, amid a shift happening across Tennessee at the time.

“What they told us then, I knew we were the antithesis of that, we were the opposite of that,” Haywood told News 2. “…They traumatized us, but not to the point where we would go back. We’d heard too many Negro spirituals, and you can’t make me turn around.”

“We came from a religious background and our parents told us to be strong and to have our faith,” Rabathaly said.

More than sixty years later, three of the four women attended Thursday’s celebration of the historic landmark honoring the integration of the Stratford School in 1963. It’s an effort that’s been in the works since 2019, led by both community members as in the Metro government. The gesture is one that brought about a new perspective for some former students.

“Then it all came to me and I started to realize that this was really a big deal, but at the time I didn’t,” Ward added. “We just came to school every day and did what we did.”

The marker is located on the school campus near the brick plinths that once held the original Stratford High School sign on the Stratford Avenue block, symbolizing a bond that began on the school steps six decades ago.

“The marker celebrates the four awards, as well as the school in general and the history of the school,” said Emily Benedict, Metro Countilmember for District 7. “It was the third high school built, according to the Nashville school board, exactly at the time the city became a metropolitan government. So the historical marker will speak to both the school history and the history of these four young children. girls of that time.”

The group told News 2 they have kept in regular contact and grown their bond, which they say now feels more like sisterhood. They saw the marker as a testament to the sacrifices they made together.

“We still need to bring people forward and learn what happened and what continues to happen,” Rabathaly said.

It is also evidence of their faith, and what they said was God’s protection and guidance.

“I’m grateful to God for showing us this because historical markers are usually given to people who have died and moved on,” Ward said.