Theodore and Lizzie Vanleer Edmondson

The singings drew people the village otherwise kept apart from. Theo Edmondson, father of Bernice Herd and Helen Hughes, organized all-night concerts at Promise Land that attracted outsiders of both races, and residents recalled no racial hostility at them. Hughes remembered two white men who came because they had befriended her father and enjoyed singing with him. The audience's pleasure in Herd and other girls singing Touch Me, Lord Jesus led him to form the Promise Land Singers, who toured Middle Tennessee. White listeners came to the village, so the nights were not segregated.

What the plaque says

Theodore Edmondson 1910-1967/ Lizzie Vanleer Edmondson 1910-1994 Born in the Promise Land community of Charlotte Tennessee, Theodore and Lizzie Vanleer Edmondson formed The Promise Land Singers who traveled throughout Tennessee and Kentucky. In 1953, a year before the beginning of the modern civil rights movement, the Promise Land Singers became the first African Americans to broadcast on Dickson's radio station WDKN and a regular slot on Nashville's WVOL Radio. A huge success, the Friday All-Night Singing brought people of all races and churches of all denominations together. Theodore and Lizzie Vanleer Edmondson are interred at the Nesbitt Cemetery in Promise Land.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Defiance Civil War Park and Interpretive Center — 23 mi
  An intact earthwork fort above the Cumberland and Red Rivers in Clarksville, begun with forced Black labor and later a contraband camp and recruiting center for Black soldiers.
• Dunbar Cave State Park — 24 mi
  A Clarksville cave with 800-year-old Mississippian artwork, later a resort and Roy Acuff's dance stage, now a state park with seasonal guided tours.

More markers nearby

• Promise Land — steps away
• Fighting for Freedom (Promise Land Civil War Heroes) — steps away
• Civil War In Charlotte — 2.3 mi
• Cumberland Furnace Iron Plantation — 4.1 mi