COLUMBIA, Tenn. (WTVF) — A statue of an important figure in Black history has just been unveiled in downtown Columbia. It's the centerpiece of a new roundabout, created to help share what's long been an undertold story.
"I've been gone so long," said Theopholis Maurice Lockridge, standing in downtown Columbia. "I left in 1964."
A crowd was gathered for an unveiling of a statue of Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme Court's first African American Justice. Marshall also has an important connection to Columbia, and Lockridge's father, Pastor Calvin Lockridge.
"We always had a joke," Lockridge remembered. "We would be millionaires if my father charged the going rate for work. What did he do? He fixed everybody's car. He fixed everybody's truck. My father was the pastor of this church here, First Missionary Baptist. He, most of all, was someone who cared."
In the 1940s, around the era of World War II, E. 8th St. in Columbia was an area of banks, barbershops, and theaters. It was a hub of Black-owned businesses. It was 1946 that the story changed.
A while back, I visited the Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative. There, co-founder Trent Ogilvie told me the story of what happened in the mid-40s. He shared how a World War II veteran named James Stephenson was in an argument with a white shop owner over a radio that'd been left for repair.
"Mr. Stephenson said he was punched in the back of his head," Ogilvie said. "He was a welterweight boxer, having served in the Navy."
The shop worker was punched through a window. An initial charge on Stephenson was changed to attempted murder. A mob arrived in the area to try to find Stephenson but was met with a resistance from Black residents, some armed on the rooftops of the buildings.
"No, James Stephenson is not going to be lynched," Ogilvie said. "We're not going to have another social lynching in Columbia, Tennessee."
What followed is now called the Columbia Race Riot of 1946. Lockridge said his father knew the community and the sheriff and was trying to be a peacekeeper.
"He had a job which was keeping his members safe and secure," Lockridge said.
Still, when 25 Black men were charged, one of them was Pastor Calvin Lockridge.
"Sometimes you're in the right place and sometimes you're in the wrong place," Lockridge said of his father.
It was then Thurgood Marshall came to the courthouse as the lead attorney to defend James Stephenson, Calvin Lockridge, and all those other men. They were found not guilty and were acquitted.
"I was born a year plus after the end of this," Lockridge said.
Over the course of the past two years, the city council passed a plan for a new roundabout to reshape downtown Columbia. The Columbia Peace and Justice Initiative has worked on ways to tell the story including bringing in Sculptor David Alan Clark.
"You can change the world if you have faith and courage," Clark told a crowd gathered around the sculpture. "He is a freight train of determination, going up to the courthouse. It's justice for all, not for just some, not for just the rich, not for a few. It's justice for all."
I asked Lockridge what his father would say about the Thurgood Marshall statue and so many people remembering this story.
"I know he would think, 'well, maybe it was worth it,'" Lockridge began. "Looking around, all I can say is wow."
Do you have a positive, good news story? You can email me at forrest.sanders@newschannel5.com.
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