The Question That Changed a City

On April 19, 1960, Diane Nash stood on the steps of Nashville's courthouse and looked Mayor Ben West in the eye. The twenty-two-year-old Fisk University student had spent months organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters across downtown Nashville. Since February 13, students had endured cigarette burns, beatings, and arrest. Eighty-one protesters were jailed on a single day. The home of Z.…