When Inez Crutchfield became the first Black woman to win the Athena Award in 1994, distinguishing Nashville-area women who “attained the highest level of professional excellence,” she was asked how she wanted to be remembered.
“I want to be remembered as having helped some other people, and hopefully to have been a role model to some of the young girls I have come in contact with,” she said in a 1994 Tennessean article.
A dedicated educator and mother-figure to many, Crutchfield was an eyewitness to Civil Rights history in Nashville when the student sit-ins rocked segregated lunch counters. She claimed many firsts as a Black woman and became a political powerhouse, brushing elbows and breaking bread with prominent Tennessee politicians despite never having served in elected office herself.
“The progress we’ve made as a community began prior to 60 years ago. She’s a generation that really put in the work,” Davidson County Criminal Clerk Howard Gentry said by phone. “It’s because of the Inez Crutchfields. She’s the last of that generation.”
Crutchfield died Monday morning. She was 99.
A life in Tennessee
Crutchfield grew up in Watertown, near Lebanon, and was raised by her father Dee Gibbs, a World War I veteran who ran a dry cleaning and tailoring business, and her mother Bessie, an educator. It was in a class her mother was overseeing that a then-freshman Inez met senior Carl Crutchfield, her future husband.
Crutchfield went on to study at Tennessee A&I, now Tennessee State University, alongside her husband upon his return from serving in World War II and their wedding.
In 1949, while living on TSU’s campus, the Gentry family moved next door in what became the beginning of a lifelong friendship between the two families. Where Inez Crutchfield succeeded, Carrie Gentry was right there with her.
The Crutchfields had two children, Carlton and Beth. Howard Gentry was born nine-months after Carlton, he said.
“I don’t remember meeting them because she’s been in my life for 72 years. She’s been there the whole time,” Gentry said.
Both Inez and Carl dedicated their careers to TSU. Inez spent 37 years teaching in the health and physical education department. Her best friend, Carrie Gentry, was in the same suite.
The student sit-ins
It was in her role at the university that put Crutchfield in a unique position to be in the right place for the 1960 student sit-ins as the Civil Rights Movement reached its peak in Nashville.
She drove students to meetings organizing the demonstrations. When they got arrested she brought them food.
“I had many a mother I’d put my arms around and hold,” Crutchfield said in a 1998 article in the Tennessean. “They would say, ‘I didn’t send my child here to be in jail.'”
Together, she and Gentry, took on a behind-the-scenes albeit crucial support role.
“Carrie and Inez were surrogate mothers to a group of people who were rebelling against a system that was unfair and unjust and disrespectful,” attorney Aubrey Harwell said in 2019 of the pair.
She appeased parents, assuring them their child wouldn’t suffer any adverse academic consequences.
“Attendance could affect your grade,” she said. “We became a little lax in roll-calling.”
Inez Crutchfield and Carrie Gentry.© D. Patrick Harding, Copyright 1996 The Tennessean;Yes Tennessean
Breaking barriers, together
In 1963, together Crutchfield and Gentry broke the race barrier in the Davidson County Democratic Party Women’s Club.
“I had determined that the Democrats were more tuned in to Black Americans. The Democratic Women’s Club had no Black members. There was some discussion of forming a Black club of Democratic women, but it was decided there was no point in starting another club,” Crutchfield said in 1998.
So she and Gentry set out to the Hermitage Hotel for a meeting, where they were met with some stares, but ultimately were accepted as members when Anna Belle Clement, sister of then-Governor Frank Clement, gave them her stamp of approval.
“Though my momma was three months older, Momma Inez was always first in everything they did,” Howard Gentry said.
Crutchfield went on to become the first Black president of the club in 1975. Carrie Gentry became the second in 1978. Crutchfield didn’t stop there. She’d go on to be the first Black woman to serve as Tennessee’s representative on the Democratic National Committee.
“A lot of the community, outside of the African American community, really never had real contact with people of color until they had contact with her,” Gentry said.
Always the architect, never the spotlight
Crutchfield was a political force and always one of the smartest people in the room, Harold Ford Sr., said by phone Tuesday. Ford met the Crutchfields while he was studying business at TSU. He became close with the family his junior year when he moved into an apartment on the couple’s property.
Ford was frequently at the Crutchfield dinner table, asking their advice.
“They always said to keep going, to keep going with your education” Ford said. “They were talking to their children, but that stuck with me.”
Ford went on the get his MBA, and took over a funeral home before people began whispering his name in political spheres. Ford called the Crutchfields for advice.
“Carl was always the business man of the family, she was the politics. She weighed in on my prospects,” Ford said. “Next thing I knew I was elected to the statehouse.”
Ford later became the first Black person to represent Tennessee in Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for Memphis from 1975 to 1997.
Crutchfield was behind many success stories like Ford. Howard Gentry credits her with his position in life.
“She’s the reason a lot of people, both black and white, got into office,” Gentry said. “There’s no doubt she had a huge effect on my successes in the political realm. There’s really not words for the impact she’s had on my life.”
While incredibly kind and selfless, Crutchfield was stubborn about one thing — running for public office herself.
“I tried to get her to do that,” Ford said chuckling. “I told her everyone knew who she was, that she’d bed great at it. She didn’t want to be in the limelight, but she was extremely active in the background. She was more active in the Democratic Party than I was. She was the brainchild.”
No slowing down
Retirement for Crutchfield was anything but restful.
“If she tells you she’s going to do something it’s as good as done. She’s most unselfish,” friend Anne Helen Mayes said in a 1998 Tennessean article. “I don’t see how she does it all. She can knock on Al Gore’s door, and he’ll open it and let her in. She’s an exceptional person.”
While it’s not clear if she did knock on Gore’s door, she’s said to have been in both his and his wife Tipper’s good graces. She was also connected to former President Bill Clinton.
“Innumerable Tennesseans have been fortunate over many years to benefit from the generosity, wisdom, and unerring guidance of Inez Crutchfield,” former Vice President Al Gore said in a statement Tuesday. “Inez was a titan of political organizing in our state and her passion for civic engagement was infectious. She lit a spark of inspiration in those she counseled and her legacy will benefit the people of Tennessee and beyond for generations. I loved her and will miss her greatly.”
Inez Crutchfield poses for a photograph with grandson Carl, then-Vice President Al gore while then-President Bill Clinton stands in the background.© Provided by the Crutchfield family
Crutchfield served on a federal judicial selection committee, the board of Bethlehem Center and the board at Meharry Medical College, where she helped shepherd the merger between the school and Metro General. In October 2019, both Crutchfield and Gentry received the Joe Kraft Humanitarian Award, dedicated to those who demonstrates a commitment to community, home and hearth, and individuals in need.
More recently, she remained active politically. In 2008, she served as a superdelegate supporting the future President Barack Obama.
“You know all this time that we, and I know I, have been telling my children, other little children you can be anything you want to be, work hard, study, you are smart, so on,” she said in a 2008 article. “But you know I don’t think I believed I would see this in my lifetime. Obama made that real.”
A funeral service for Crutchfield will be held Sept. 23 at First Baptist Church Capitol Hill, though the time is still being decided. Arrangements are being handled by Lewis and Wright Funeral Directors.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: ‘Most unselfish’: Nashville Civil Rights activist Inez Crutchfield dead at 99
