Sampson W. Keeble

Keeble was born enslaved around 1832 and worked as a pressman for two Murfreesboro weeklies. By 1866 he ran the Rock City Barber Shop in Nashville. Narrowly elected in November 1872, helped by a heavy Black vote for Grant and by some white voters who took him for a moderate, he introduced three bills that all failed: one letting Black people run businesses downtown, one protecting Black laborers' wages and one funding the Tennessee Manual Labor University. He lost his 1878 bid to return to the legislature to a Greenback candidate.

What the plaque says

Sampson W. Keeble Sampson W. Keeble, barber, businessman, and civic leader, became the first African-American to serve in the Tennessee General Assembly. Serving from 1873 to 1875, Keeble was appointed to the House Military Affairs Committee and the Immigration Committee. After service in the legislature, he was elected magistrate in Davidson County and served from 1877 to 1882.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ryman Auditorium — 0.2 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.
• National Museum of African American Music — 0.2 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.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 0.4 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.
• Tennessee State Capitol — 0.6 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.

More markers nearby

• Birth of Bluegrass — 0.2 mi
• Maxwell House Hotel — 0.3 mi
• First Masonic Hall — 0.3 mi
• Downtown Presbyterian Church — 0.3 mi