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…
