Entries

The Booker T. Washington State Park is located on Chickamauga Reservoir northeast of downtown Chattanooga. The park, established as a state recreation area in 1938, was the state's second African American recreation area, preceded only by T. O. Fuller State…

Daniel Boone is perhaps the best known of the early "long hunters" who ventured across the Appalachian Mountains to hunt and explore in the area of present-day Tennessee and Kentucky. Born on November 2, 1734, in Oley, Berks County, Pennsylvania,…

Former Tennessee State University track star and medalist in the 1960, 1964, and 1968 Olympic games, Ralph Boston was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on May 9, 1939. Boston attended Tennessee State University, where in 1960 he won the national collegiate…

Elias Boudinot, Cherokee publisher and signer of the removal treaty, was born around 1802 in what is now North Georgia and given the name Buck Oo-watie Galagina, or Stag. In 1818 he went to mission school in Cornwall, Connecticut, where…

George T. Bowen was the first prominent scientist recruited to teach in a Tennessee college. A Rhode Island native, he was admitted to Yale in 1819 with sophomore standing. He graduated in 1822, then went to the University of Pennsylvania,…

Captain William Bowen brought his family to what is now Sumner County in 1784. He first built a double log cabin on the bank of Mansker's Creek before erecting a brick home in 1787. Now within the present limits of…

Cumberland pioneer William Bowen was born in 1742 in Fincastle County, Virginia, and migrated to the Cumberland Valley in 1784. He and his family first lived at Mansker's Station, and next they lived in a log house nearby the station.…

Duke C. Bowers was a Memphis businessman, philanthropist, and fervent opponent of the death penalty. Bowers was born in 1874 in Mobile, Alabama; his family moved to Kentucky when he was a young child. After a failed attempt in the…

African American business leader in cosmetology and civil rights activist Eva Lowery Bowman was born to William and Alice Lowery in Nashville on April 25, 1899. She attended Pearl High School, Walden University, and Tennessee A&I State Normal College. Her…

The Boy Scout program came to both the United States and Tennessee in 1910, only three years after General Robert Baden-Powell founded the program in Great Britain. In 1909 William Perry "Buck" Toms read an article on the scouting movement…

Henry Allen Boyd, founder of the Nashville Globe, was the son of Richard Henry Boyd, founder and manager of the National Baptist Publishing Board. As the son of one of Nashville's most prominent black businessmen and public figures, Boyd learned…

John W. Boyd was one of the first African Americans to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly. Born in Georgia to Jackson and Martha Boyd around 1841, John Boyd grew up probably in both Georgia and Tennessee. His family is…

Richard Henry Boyd, a founder of both the National Baptist Convention and the National Baptist Publishing Board, was born in Texas late in the antebellum era. After receiving an education at Bishop College, an institution for black Baptist men supported…

Virginia Frazer Boyle, "Poet Laureate of the Confederacy," was born in Chattanooga on February 14, 1863, to Charles Wesley and Letitia Austin Frazer. After the Civil War, the family moved to Memphis, where her father practiced law. Boyle challenged tradition…

Reese Bowen Brabson, attorney, state legislator, and U.S. congressman, was born at Brabson's Ferry, Knox County, on September 16, 1817. He graduated from Maryville College and studied law at Dandridge in Jefferson County. In 1844 he married Sarah Maria Keith,…

Roark Bradford, novelist, short story writer, and journalist, was born in Lauderdale County, where he was raised on a cotton plantation in the Nankipoo-Knob Creek area. The African Americans who worked the farm and with whom he attended church strongly…

Bradley Academy is a historic African American school in Murfreesboro that now serves as a community heritage center. The name Bradley Academy was given to the first school in Murfreesboro and to subsequent school buildings located on property donated by…

Located in southeast Tennessee, Bradley County was carved out of the Ocoee District, which had been part of the Cherokee Nation. Today, one of the top tourist sites in Tennessee is Red Clay State Historical Area, an interpretative center for…

Owen Bradley, musician and producer, was one of the pioneers of the Nashville recording industry and a developer of the Nashville Sound. Born in Westmoreland, Sumner County, Bradley began his musical career early by assembling musical groups to play at…

Braxton Bragg, controversial commander of the Army of Tennessee from June 1862 to December 1863, was born in Warrenton, North Carolina, on March 21, 1817. He attended West Point and graduated fifth in the class of 1837. Bragg fought against…