Say a Good Word for Slavery: Jack Kershaw, Pt. 3
Weird Little Guys
iHeartPodcasts and Cool Zone Media
4.6 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 April 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the final part of the story about Jack Kershaw, we'll talk about his legal career. Before he represented MLK's assassin, before he sculpted a gigantic racist statue out of old bathtubs, he got a law degree from a part time night school program at the YMCA so he could do his part to stop integration.
Sources:
Phillips, Betsy. Dynamite Nashville: the FBI, the KKK, and the bombers beyond their control. Third Man Books 2021.
Houston, Benjamin, et al. “‘We Kept the Discussion at an Adult Level’: Jack Kershaw and the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional Government.” Southern Cultures, vol. 20, no. 4, 2014, pp. 72–88. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26217566
Graham, Hugh Davis. “Desegregation in Nashville: The Dynamics of Compliance.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 25, no. 2, 1966, pp. 135–54. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42622869
McMillen, Neil R. “Organized Resistance to School Desegregation In Tennessee.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 3, 1971, pp. 315–28. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42623247
Michael J. Henry, Student Display of the Confederate Flag in Public Schools, 33 J.L. & EDUC. 573 (2004).
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2824&context=jled
Egerton, Joel. Walking into History: The Beginning of School Desegregation in Nashville
https://southernspaces.org/2009/walking-history-beginning-school-desegregation-nashville/
https://www.ahcuah.com/lawsuit/federal/melton.htm
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/328/88/1428295/
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/42777957/james-n-mason/
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/BR/81/897/1821803/
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/the-fugitives/
https://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entries/clinton-desegregation-crisis/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/24/us/nashville-civil-rights-bombings.html
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:06.0 | Cool Zone Media. |
| 0:11.8 | In January of 1979, there was a minor fender bender, |
| 0:17.1 | outside of a parking garage in downtown Nashville. |
| 0:20.5 | The damage was nothing to get upset about. |
| 0:24.3 | Less than $50 worth. Just a scratch, really. |
| 0:28.5 | But the driver responsible fled the scene. |
| 0:32.5 | It's a thing of principle, the traffic investigator told the Tennessean, |
| 0:37.1 | and the man whose car had been |
| 0:38.6 | hit swore out a warrant against the driver. People saw it happen. They knew who he was. |
| 0:46.7 | Gregory King, a postal worker, says the man hit his car, swore at him, and then drove off. |
| 0:56.3 | Witnesses saw the man back into King's car, open his door to survey the damage, and then |
| 1:02.0 | hit the gas so hard his tire squealed as he left the scene. And when the driver was served |
| 1:07.9 | with the warrant for leaving the scene of an accident, he didn't deny it. |
| 1:12.7 | Instead, he claimed he had to leave for his own safety, |
| 1:17.8 | saying, quote, |
| 1:19.3 | he was an excited, very angry black man. |
| 1:22.8 | I don't know what kind of weapons they carry, |
| 1:24.8 | and I didn't intend to hang around to find out. |
| 1:28.3 | Nothing ever came of it. |
| 1:31.9 | The newspaper described him as a controversial Nashville attorney, citing his one claim to fame, |
... |
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