In Conversation with John Edwards, III

National Park Partners Executive Director, Tricia Mims, sat down with Board Member, John Edwards, III, recently to talk about local black history and Edwards’ own path before, during, and after the Civil Rights movement. 

John Edwards, III is the Executive Editor, owner, and founder of the Chattanooga News-Chronicle, our city’s prominent African American newspaper focused on the needs and news of Chattanooga’s black community. As a Vietnam Veteran, John also serves on the Board of Trustees of the National Medal of Honor Museum. His perspective enriches our organization and helps us grow as we seek to connect all people through the layers of history and stories that can be seen, told, and shared through the lens of the national park.  In 2019, John helped our organization lead and develop a Civil War To Civil Rights walking tour of downtown, Chattanooga, including the corner of Market Street where the firehoses were first used on protestors in this country.

In conversation with National Park Partners Executive Director, Tricia Mims, NPP Board Member and founder of the Chattanooga News-Chronicle, John Edwards, III, shares stories about growing up in a Civil Rights family, community organizing in Nashville with the late Senator John Lewis, and starting the Chattanooga News-Chronicle.

Before moving with his family from Nashville to Chattanooga in 1963, John was involved from a very young age with the civil rights movement and was one of the youngest persons to participate in the sit-ins there. It was inside his home church where his father was a youth pastor, The First Baptist Church in Nashville, where young Mr. Edwards met and organized protests with a young John Lewis. 

In this incredible one-on-one conversation, John talks about what it was like “growing up in a Civil Rights family” and how in 1969 while a combat soldier fighting America’s war in Vietnam, he learned that his parents’ home in Chattanooga’s Fortwood neighborhood was firebombed. Hear how he then went on to build relationships and resources that would eventually become the Chattanooga News-Chronicle.

It is likely these are stories of our shared history you have never heard before.

Watch the full conversation here.

Thank you for your service, John.