The Murfreesboro Union

Historical Marker: corner of Highland Avenue and Vaughn Street

The Murfreesboro Union, Murfreesboro’s first Black newspaper, was founded in 1920 by Mary Ellen Vaughn. Born in Alabama in 1893, Vaughn was highly educated, graduating from Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), Chicago Business College, and Tennessee A&I College (now Tennessee State University). Vaughn lived in Murfreesboro for the last thirty years of her life. The Murfreesboro Union was a four-page monthly newspaper that published news from the Black community, including advertisements for Black businesses, obituaries, and notices of social events that were not allowed to be published in white newspapers. In addition to running the Murfreesboro Union until her death in 1953, Vaughn also opened Vaughn’s Training School in her home in 1933. The school provided training in home healthcare, typing, cosmetology, and sewing, as well as adult education, in order to provide Black residents of Murfreesboro with educational and vocational opportunities denied them in white institutions. In the era of Jim Crow laws that prevented African Americans from voting by instituting poll taxes and literacy requirements, Vaughn’s Training School provided literacy training to help African Americans meet requirements for voting.