The Tennessean's staff photographers civil rights images in the book 'We Shall Overcome'

Protesters, parents and students gather in front Buena Vista School on first day of desegregation in Nashville's schools on Sept. 9, 1957. Three black children walked through the front door of the school on the first day.

Errol Groves, left, sits with his new classmates at Buena Vista School on first day of desegregation in Nashville's schools, Sept. 9, 1957. Groves was one of three black children that went to the school on the first day.

Harry Robb of Chapel Avenue shows a letter Sept. 9, 1957, that his family received from a Ku Klux Klan member about his granddaughter Era May Bailey's enrollment in the all-white Bailey School. The letter threatened a cross-burning if the family did not move.

A perplexed little boy, unidentified, stands before the wreckage of Hattie Cotton School and surveys the damage done by dynamite to the $500,000 building where 390 first- through sixth-grade pupils normally attend on Sept. 10, 1957.

Jean Wynona Fleming, a Fisk University student, broods behind the bars in Nashville city jail March 25, 1960, after her arrest at the downtown Moon-McGrath drugstore lunch counter. Black people swarmed into the downtown area and resumed their protests against segregated eating facilities with sit-in demonstrations at nine restaurants.

Student sit-in leader Rodney Powell, standing, talks with Marion Barry, center, and another one of his companions after the lunch counter at Walgreen's drug store was closed when the sit-ins started March 25, 1960.

Silhouetted against disaster, John Thomas Martin wields his broom, sweeping up the fragments of glass from shattered windows in the Meharry Medical College Alumni building April 19, 1960. In the background, a curious crowd gathers at the bombed home of Z. Alexander Looby, which shattered 147 windows at the college.

Black leaders march down Jefferson Street at the head of a group of 3,000 demonstrators on April 19, 1960, toward City Hall on the day of the bombing of the home of Z. Alexander Looby. In the first row, are the Rev. C.T. Vivian, left, Diane Nash of Fisk, and Bernard Lafayette of American Baptist Seminary. In the second row are Kenneth Frazier and Curtis Murphy of Tennessee A&I, and Rodney Powell of Meharry. Using his handkerchief in the third row is the Rev. James Lawson, one of the advisers to the students.

Like a giant serpent, the line of black college demonstrators wends its way around the courthouse area, coming out from Jefferson Street and James Robertson Boulevard April 19, 1960. The demonstrators, on the day of the Z. Alexander Looby bombing, marching three abreast stretched 10 blocks.

Students demonstrators James Bevel, left, and John Lewis, right, stand inside the insecticide fume-filled The Krystal lunch counter at 204 Fifth Ave. N. in downtown Nashville on Nov. 10, 1960, after the manager turned on a fumigating machine to disrupt their sit-in. The pair remained inside the restaurant for half an hour while it filled up with the dense cloud of non-toxic insect spray.

Demonstrators sing in front of the Nashville Police Department on Aug. 7, 1961, as they protest what they called police brutality in a racial clash two nights earlier. The demonstrators criticized "inadequate" police protection and called for qualified black personnel to "replace incompetent officers on the police force."

A small group of whites and blacks picket in front of the Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville on Sept. 25, 1961, where Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington is in a conference. The group, with the Rev. James Lawson, front, is seeking reinstatement of the 14 "Freedom Riders" dismissed from Tennessee A&I State University in June.

Tusculum firemen, right, stand by to protect homes on either side of the burning home of the Rev. Cephus C. Coleman, center, a black minister. His home, which is in a predominantly white neighborhood, was destroyed by the third blaze to break out in the same night on Aug. 7, 1962. The Davidson County sheriff's chief investigator later said, "arson is definitely the cause" of the fire.

A group of about 60 black and white demonstrators leaves the First Baptist Church at Eighth Avenue, North, to march two and a half blocks to protest the segregation policy of the YMCA building Feb. 24, 1963.

A group of men, women and children gather in front of the downtown YMCA Feb. 24, 1963 to protest segregation. This group is part of the crowd of about 60 that participated in the demonstration, lead by the Nashville Christian Leadership Council. A couple of the student leaders are John Lewis, center on the right side, and Lester McKinnie, right.

Demonstrators march in the vicinity of the downtown area March 23, 1963 to protest racial discrimination in Nashville. Holding the "Join the Freedom March" sign is John Lewis, chairman of the Student Central Committee of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council, sponsors of the movement.

Louis Miller, 16, one of two black people arrested on charges of brick throwing that broke a car windshield, is put into the paddy wagon May 11, 1963, at the First Baptist Church. Miller will be on his way to juvenile detention. City photographer at right is Milton McClurkan.

Black students demonstrators, some wearing their bathing suits, attempted to get into the segregated Cascade Plunge Swimming Club at the State Fairgrounds on June 19, 1963, but were blocked by pool's officials and were not allowed in.

A group of Nashvillians board a couple of buses Aug. 27, 1963, at the First Baptist Church downtown for a trip to Washington, D.C., for the "March for Jobs and Freedom." They were part of 200,000 that massed before the Abraham Lincoln Memorial and hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Archie Allen, left, a member of the civil rights demonstrators, talks with employees of the Tic Toc Restaurant on Church Street on April 27, 1964. Moments later, Allen was attacked by the employees and knocked down on the sidewalk.

Civil rights demonstrators sit in Metro jail on April 27, 1964, as they wait to make bond. They are Lester McKinnie, left, one of the group's leaders; Allen Wolfe, a Vanderbilt student; William T. Barbee, a Scarritt student; and Frederick Leonard, a student at Tennessee A&I. McKinnie was subdued by police and was treated for injuries at General Hospital.

Dr. Martin Luther King , Jr., gives a speech at Vanderbilt University on April 7, 1967, where he said the best route to a true integration was nonviolence.

Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, pours himself a glass of water before speaking during the Impact symposium at Vanderbilt University on April 8, 1967.

A Metro policeman shows off the rock that rioters used to damaged a storefront on April 9, 1967. Rock-throwing escalated to gunfire as violence erupted, sending mobs and riot police swarming through North Nashville.

Metro police check a man's pockets before putting him into a patrol car on Jefferson Street on April 9, 1967. Rock-throwing escalated to gunfire as violence erupted, sending mobs and riot police swarming through North Nashville.

A Metro police officer shows the rock that smashed into the back window of his patrol car that was in the North Nashville area just hours after the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis April 4, 1968.

Dr. Ralph Abernathy, successor to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, stands at the top of the ramp as pallbearers lift the slain civil rights leader's casket aboard an Atlanta-bound plane April 5, 1968.

Three National Guardsmen stand on duty at the Ed Rennolds Gun Service and American Firearms on 12th Avenue in Nashville on April 6, 1968, during a time of unrest in Nashville.

A packed house of 1,500 people pray during an interracial and interdenominational memorial service for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., at the Gordon Memorial Church in Nashville on April 7, 1968.

Metro firemen lay out their hoses to start battling an out-of-control blaze at the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) building on the campus of Tennessee A&I State University on April 7, 1968. Metro Police said the fire at the building was the apparent work of arsonists.

Coretta Scott King, second from the right, stands at the front of a crowd of thousands as they prepare for a silent march from Clayborn Temple to city hall in Memphis on April 8, 1968, to honor Martin Luther King, Jr. after his assassination a few days earlier. With her at the front of the crowd are Yolande King, left, Harry Belafonte, Martin Luther King III, Dexter King and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy. Behind the widow is the Rev. Jesse Jackson.