Welcome to Frankie Pierce Park

Welcome to Frankie Pierce Park. . , Juno Frankie (Seay) Pierce was born in Nashville near the end or just after the Civil War. Pierce was educated at the Joseph G. McKee Freedman School, the first free African American school in Nashville, and at Roger Williams College, one of four freedman's colleges in the city. She was a member of the nearby First Baptist Colored Church, now First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill. , Frankie Pierce worked throughout her life for equality and human dignity, leading the creation of black branches of the YWCA and the Red Cross, and championing the Tennessee Federation of Colored Women's Clubs, the Negro Voters League and other civic groups. , On May 18, 1920, Pierce was the only African American to address the state woman's suffrage convention. She presented a poignant defense of racial and gender equality, drawing on the common bonds formed by women's service organizations during World War One. On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving American.women the right to vote. African American women and other women of color were still often excluded from having full voting rights and were not fully enfranchised until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. , Later, Pierce and the League of Women Voters successfully secured state funds to open the Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls in North Nashville, where she served as superintendent until 1939. , Pierce remained an impactful activist and advocate until her death in 1954. , [Caption:] , Frankie Pierce, African American Suffragist, Educator and Community Leader, c. 1864 - March 22, 1954