Bradley Academy Museum and Cultural Center: 415 S. Academy St.

Originally open to white boys only, Bradley became a co-educational school for African American students in 1884 and evolved into a thriving community center after this National Register-listed building was constructed in 1917. One of Bradley’s best-known graduates was local icon Myrtle Glanton Lord, who returned to teach here and later served on the museum’s board; the Heritage Classroom is named for her. Exhibits feature such accomplished women as Emma G. (Rogers) Roberts, a principal at Bradley and the first African American county educator inducted into the Tennessee Teachers Hall of Fame (1995), and Bradley graduate Olivia Murray Woods, who became the first African American undergraduate student at Middle Tennessee State Teachers College when she enrolled in 1962 (she eventually obtained both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree).