1968 paved Nashville's way in health care, history

Death darkens many memories of 1968. 

The patriarch of the civil rights movement murdered. A candidate for the president of the United States killed. The dreams of optimism snuffed out by violence.

Fifty years ago, Nashville mourned Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, two men whose ideology and idealism left a mark on the city just as it did on the country.

But, as their deaths left Nashville's progressive and civil rights community reeling, a sense of solidarity also settled over the city, a feeling that things needed to be different.

"There was shock with the deaths of King and Bobby Kennedy," said Reavis Mitchell, a Nashville native and a history professor at Fisk University.

"But," he adds, "there was also this mood, especially in Nashville, that change was amidst."

With change came advancement.

A Southern city celebrated for the civil rights victories of the lunch counter sit-ins in 1968 saw growth in downtown development and a historic inception in health care. 

It pushed forward with integration, while interstate construction also dissected one of its most historic black neighborhoods. And it enjoyed continued focus as the center of country music, all with the sense of pride that progress achieved. 

"History really has a continuum," Mitchell said. "... We kept believing that the optimism of 1968 was going to roll over and multiply itself. In some instances it did."

A black community cut in half by an interstate

Nashville was the first Southern city to desegregate lunch counters and movie theaters. It developed a pragmatic, one-year-at-a-time approach to integrating public schools.

It served as the training ground for civil rights leaders like John Lewis and Diane Nash.

And, in 1968, it graduated the first class of black undergraduate students at Vanderbilt University.

That year, just two months before his assassination, Kennedy looked out at a crowd of 10,800 packed in Memorial Gymnasium for Vanderbilt's Impact Symposium and said: "I do not believe these disagreements are as great as the principles which unite us."

But even as the city pushed forward with desegregation, Nashville's progress meant that some black neighborhoods were being destroyed.

Less than 3 miles to the north, the Jefferson Street Commercial District, home to one of the best music scenes for R&B, jazz, gospel and blues in Nashville, had established itself as a dynamic and diverse community.

But in the late 1960s, it was under attack.

It was down Jefferson Street that a group of young black students marched in April 1967 at the urging of Stokely Carmichael during a speech he made at Vanderbilt.

Riots occurred around Fisk and Tennessee A&I College that night, damaging buildings in the area and sparking a devastating fire at the restaurant across from Brown's Hotel — which over the years had hosted visiting musicians like Louis Armstrong, Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard, who were not allowed to stay at the "white only" hotels.

In 1968, the district felt the final blow when the scaffolding of Nashville's future progress came barreling through the heart of the community in the form of Interstate 40.

The interstate — which would soon become a vital and crowded thoroughfare — severed street arteries, halting traffic flow and causing the closure and demolition of nightclubs like the Del Morocco, one of Hendrix's main venues in Nashville.

It adversely impacted 626 homes and 128 businesses that were primarily African-American owned, according to an analysis by the Metropolitan Historical Commission.

"Jefferson Street's renaissance was at its peak before the interstate cut it in half," Nashville lawyer and historian David Ewing said. "It really never has been the same ever since."

That was just the beginning of the development to come.

HCA: New industry, new millionaires, new investment

The hip-factor that would, decades later, see Nashville recognized as the "it city" started first with it becoming a health care mecca.

Hospital Corporation of America, better known as HCA, was founded in Nashville in 1968.

That year five decades ago, a father and son, Drs. Thomas Frist Sr. and Jr., joined friend Jack Massey in envisioning a company that could meet the demands of rapidly growing communities around the city in need of more access to health care.

They succeeded. HCA was not only one of the first hospital companies in the United States, it also became the largest.

"The most significant thing in 1968 from a business standpoint was the founding of HCA," Ewing said. "HCA made Nashville the health care capital of the world.

"It created a new industry, hundreds of spinoff companies, countless millionaires and even some billionaires who have continued to invest and contribute to Nashville's good."

Look at any college campus in Nashville and you will see a building given by one of the beneficiaries of HCA, Ewing says. And, he adds, there would be no Frist Art Museum without the success of the Frist doctors and their families.

Also contributing to the development of downtown, in 1968 the National Life & Accident Insurance Company building rose up behind the L&C Tower, becoming the newest skyscraper to grace the city's skyline — and the tallest.

Three decades later, that building would be sold to the state of Tennessee and become known as the William R. Snodgrass Tennessee Tower, home of several government offices.

Music City and history

Just as it established its future in health care, Nashville continued to be the center of country music.

Before Nashville had professional sports, the place where a person would watch a live performance was not at a football stadium or an arena but at the Ryman Auditorium.

And 1968 brought one of the best new inductee classes of the Grand Ole Opry, which called the iconic music venue home.

Future Country Music Hall of Fame members George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Mel Tillis and Dolly Parton all joined the Opry, further forging Nashville's reputation as Music City. 

The Ryman would be preserved in perpetuity, but as development threatened other parts of the city, the newly formed Metropolitan Historical Commission looked to protect it.

The commission erected its first historical marker in 1968 to commemorate Heaton’s Station, a fort built by James Robertson when he founded Nashville more than 100 years ago. The other main focus for the commission that year was how to ensure Union Station would be preserved when its train service ended.

That stunning building still stands today.

And, not to be overlooked, all the progress of 1968 came under the watchful guidance of a mayor named Beverly Briley.

Five decades later, in 2018, Nashville again has a Briley as mayor, this time Beverly’s grandson, David.

That's one thing that 1968 hasn't changed.

Reach Jessica Bliss at jbliss@tennessean.com or 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.

To read all of the USA TODAY Network's stories from this troubled and transformational year, visit 1968.usatoday.com.