Haynes High School

William Haynes (1850-1933) was born in Murfreesboro, the son of a plantation owner and an enslaved woman. A Baptist leader who led several churches and worked for the Sunday School Publishing Board, he helped develop the Haynes-Trinity area of North Nashville and believed Black children should have schooling despite segregation. He sold land to the Davidson County Board of Education for the school and later donated more when it grew. Haynes School opened in 1931 as an elementary school, and its last senior class graduated in 1967. A new Haynes Middle building opened on the site in 2003.

What the plaque says

Haynes High School Haynes School was named for William Haynes, a local African American who made the land available on which the school was built. With T. Clinton Derricks as founding principal, Haynes began in 1931 as an elementary school with grades one through eight. Prior to the 1962 merger of the city and county governments, the only high school for African Americans in rural Davidson County began at Haynes in 1935 when the ninth grade was added. Grades ten through twelve were added by 1938. The last senior class graduated in 1967 and the junior high school program closed in 1970.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 2.9 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 — 2.9 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 — 3.2 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 — 3.3 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

• Griggs Hall — 0.4 mi
• Zephaniah Alexander Looby — 1.5 mi
• Great French Lick — 2.4 mi
• Ted Rhodes — 2.6 mi