Community advocate urges renaming Hadley Park Branch for civil-rights leader Kwame Lillard

Kyle Cook, who identified himself as SEIU Local 205 chief steward, used the meeting's public-comment period to ask the Nashville Public Library Board to rename Hadley Park Branch for Kwame Lillard. "I ask the library board to rename Hadley Park Branch after Kwame Lillard," Cook said, recounting Lillard's role in downtown lunch-counter sit-ins, freedom rides and protests to desegregate public swimming pools in the 1960s.

Cook told the board he joined 400 Tennessee residents in petitioning the Parks Board in 2021; the Parks Board voted June 6, 2021 to rename the park in Lillard's honor. He framed the request as consistent with the library's mission to preserve and present civil-rights history, saying the library's Civil Rights Room documents Nashville's fight for equality and that naming a branch would "signal to our residents and our visitors" who helped secure community access to public spaces.

Board members thanked Cook for appearing and for keeping comments within the public-comment time limit. The board did not take immediate action during the meeting on the renaming request; no vote on a renaming item was recorded in the meeting minutes presented at this session. The board will need to add any formal renaming proposal to a future agenda and follow Metro procedures for changes to facility names.

Next steps: The request was entered into the record during public comment. If board members or staff place a renaming proposal on a future agenda, the board would consider it and, if approved, forward required paperwork to Metro Council for final action.