Marshall Keeble

Keeble's ministry ran partly on white patronage, and he knew how that looked. From about 1920 A. B. Burton, founder of Life and Casualty Insurance and a devout Church of Christ member, paid his travel costs. Keeble said Booker T. Washington shaped his views, urged patience, and reserved seating for whites when he preached to mixed crowds, which angered many Black listeners. Historians find the record more complex: at the Nashville Christian Institute he trained young ministers to face discrimination, mentored the lawyer Fred Gray and the activist Floyd Rose, and late in life celebrated segregation's crumbling.

What the plaque says

Marshall Keeble 1878-1968 Marshall Keeble was born to ex-slave parents Robert and Mittie Keeble in Rutherford County on December 7, 1878. At age 18, Keeble delivered his first sermon at Jackson Street Church of Christ where he remained a member until his death. One of the few African Americans to participate in the "Restoration Movement" on a national level, his audiences were racially diverse. From 1942 to 1958, Keeble served as president of the Nashville Christian Institute. A world-wide evangelist, Keeble baptized thousands of persons, established hundreds of congregations, and worked with a number of schools. Keebler died on April 20, 1968. His funeral service was held at the Madison Church of Christ and his body was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fisk University and Jubilee Hall — 0.3 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 — 0.9 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 — 1.1 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.
• National Museum of African American Music — 1.3 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.

More markers nearby

• Charles Spurgeon Johnson / Robert E. Park — 0.2 mi
• The John Wesley Work Home — 0.2 mi
• Ella Sheppard (Moore) — 0.2 mi
• Fisk Memorial Chapel — 0.3 mi