Griggs Hall

Sutton E. Griggs, born in Texas in 1872, wrote Imperium in Imperio in 1899, a novel about a secret African American government inside the United States, with two friends divided over whether to assimilate or resist. He founded Orion Publishing in 1901 and sold his more than thirty books door to door and at revival meetings. His longest pastorate was Tabernacle Baptist in Memphis, nineteen years. The seminary was founded in 1924 by the National Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention together, and Griggs served as its president in 1925 and 1926.

What the plaque says

Griggs Hall Built in 1925, Griggs Hall is the original building on the American Baptist Theological Seminary campus, now American Baptist College. It was named for father and son, Drs. Allen R. and Sutton E. Griggs. In 1901, the younger Griggs founded and operated the Orion Publishing Company. The author of more than 33 books, five of which were novels, Dr. Sutton E. Griggs is studied for his response to the racial injustices of his day. From 1925 to 1926, he served as president of the school. During the 1960s, Griggs Hall was the "home" of several seminary students who organized and led sit-ins, freedom rides, and other civil rights movements in Nashville, the South, and the nation. The student organizers were influenced by their homiletics professor, the Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, Sr., pastor of the First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, a local leader in the African-American Community.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 2.5 mi
  The 1866 school for freed people whose Jubilee Singers paid for Jubilee Hall, a National Historic Landmark, and whose students helped start Nashville's sit-ins.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 2.6 mi
  William Strickland's Greek Revival capitol on Nashville's Capitol Hill, finished in 1859 and built from the bottom up with the labor of enslaved men.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.9 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• Ryman Auditorium — 3.0 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Haynes High School — 0.4 mi
• Zephaniah Alexander Looby — 1.2 mi
• Great French Lick — 2.0 mi
• Ted Rhodes — 2.3 mi