Breaking the Chains Speaker Series: Linda Wynn

Join us on May 9th

At St. Peter’s Episcopal Church for the next event in our “Breaking the Chains of Forgetfulness” Speaker Series featuring Linda Wynn. Mrs. Wynn will discuss the life of Z. Alexander Looby, who is featured in the exhibition. 

Mrs. Wynn will trace Looby’s life from his humble beginnings to his legal career, including his role defending accused African Americans after the Columbia, TN, racial disturbance of 1946. She will also discuss his involvement in politics and experiences as an attorney for Nashville Student Activists in the 1960s. 

Important Information:
  • Meet in the Parish Hall at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church (311 W. 7th Street)
  • Parking is available in the lot behind the church. Take the stairs at the top of the parking lot into the Parish Hall. Handicap accessible parking is located along Frierson Street
  • Breaking the Chains Speaker Series events are free and open to the public
  • “Breaking the Chains of Forgetfulness” is a temporary art exhibition at Polk Presidential Hall. It is funded in part by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission. More information is available here. 
About the Speaker: 

Linda T. Wynn is the Assistant Director for State Programs with the Tennessee Historical Commission and a former member of Fisk University’s faculty, where she taught subjects in history and public administration in the Department of History and Political Science. She earned her B.S. and M. S.  degrees in history, and a Masters in Public Administration from Tennessee State University. A co-founder of the Nashville Conference on African American History and Culture, she is an active scholar and contributor to numerous publications including Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee, first edition which she se co-edited with Dr. Bobby Lovett and edited second edition with Caroline Eller; Freedom Facts and Firsts: 400 Years of the African American Civil Rights Experience, co-edited with Dr. Jessie C. Smith editor of Journey to Our Past: A Guide to African-American Markers in Tennessee. She contributed a chapter on “African Americans in Tennessee” for the African American State by State Encyclopedia edited by the late historian Alton Hornsby and published by Greenwood Press. Her pioneering chapter on The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the meaning of his ethos for women across the globe entitled “Beyond Patriarchy: The Meaning of Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Women of the World” appears in Caught in an Inescapable Network of Mutuality edited by noted King scholar Lewis V. Baldwin and Paul Dekar. She has served as a consultant to the Frist Museum, the State Museum, and the Nashville Public Library, including its newest room on Votes for Women, and other organizations. She contributed a chapter to the Frist Museum’s award-wining We Shall Overcome Catalogue, entitled, “Nashville: An Inspirational City”.  Mrs. Wynn curated and narrated Nashville Sites Nashville’s Civil Rights Movement Walking and Driving Tours. She is a former member of the Nashville City Cemetery Board, she currently serves on the Nashville Public Television (NPT) Advisory Board, Preservation Society of Nashville Board, and as Chair of the Metropolitan Historical Commission of Nashville and Davidson County and is a member of the advisory board for the Metropolitan Historical Commission’s Nashville Civil Rights Movement Documentation Project.  A member of Spruce Street Baptist Church, she is also a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.

© 2024 President James K. Polk Home and Museum

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