NASHVILLE, TN — Two Nashville museums have been added to the historic U.S. Civil Rights Trail. This trail features more than 130 stops nationwide across 14 states and Washington, D.C. — museums, churches, schools, motels and other sites of protest and history. It was launched in 2018. Last week, the trail added two new locations to the 17 it already has in the state. These were the Jefferson Street Sound Museum and the Museum of Christian and Gospel Music.
“To be included as a stop along the Civil Rights Trail helps to guarantee the histories, the stories, the music, the songs and the civil rights events that happened on and near historic Jefferson Street will not be forgotten,” Lorenzo Washington, founder and curator of the Jefferson Street Sound Museum, told the Tennessee Lookout.
Jefferson Street Sound Museum is located at 2004 Jefferson Street, directly across the street from Citizens Bank. It was established in 2011 by Washington to preserve Jefferson Street’s rich musical and entertainment history. It houses a host of vital and valuable artifacts, photographs and stories from the area’s Golden Age (roughly 1935–1965) that highlight Jefferson Street’s importance as a center of Black culture and music.
The Museum of Christian and Gospel Music is a newer facility. It is located at 402 Commerce Street in downtown Nashville and officially opened October 3, 2025. It showcases over 500 historical monuments and 300 artists through interactive exhibits and artifacts that spotlight different genres of Christian and Gospel music. It’s also the new home of the Gospel Music Association’s Gospel Music Hall of Fame, which has inducted nearly 200 members since 1971.
Some other Tennessee sites included are the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, the location where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and the Green McAdoo Cultural Center in Clinton, Tennessee, which pays homage to the first 12 students who desegregated a high school in Tennessee. There’s also Nashville’s Woolworth Theatre on Fifth Avenue, the site of lunch counter sit-ins during the 1960s.
In addition to their symbolic importance, all these sites feature exhibits and information detailing critical events and state personalities who had significant impact on or within the Civil Rights Movement. Jefferson Street Sound Museum includes a house mural that lets visitors chronicle the lives of key civil rights leaders and their accomplishments and activities. For more detailed information regarding all the sites on the Civil Rights Trail, visit CivilRightsTrail.com. The Jefferson Street Sound Museum is open to the public on Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For special tours or visits, the museum is available by appointment on Tuesdays through Thursdays. The Museum of Christian and Gospel Music is generally open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursdays until 7 p.m., and is closed on Sundays.
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