Back in August of 1957, Tennessee’s state softball championships were being held in Nashville. Teams from the capital won both the men’s and women’s divisions, but a Knoxville team did make it to the final of the men’s.

Wright’s Photo team from Nashville defeated the team from the Knoxville Iron Company 2-1. But it was the team the Ironworkers beat in the semi-final that got my attention: the Knights from Chattanooga, sponsored by the Ku Klux Klan. You have got to be kidding me.

I ran across this tidbit while researching the Tower Theatre, formerly of Fountain City. Its location is now obscured by “new” Broadway, the rerouting of Old Broadway and the I-640 interchange. But it sat on what is now Old Broadway, facing toward the Broadway entrance to Lynnhurst Cemetery, roughly across the street from where the Starbucks is now.

As I was searching for stories on the lighter side, I came across a disturbing anecdote about the KKK protesting a movie at the Tower in the same time frame another chapter was playing for softball glory in Nashville. And, sure enough, it was true. The movie was Island in the Sun, which starred Harry Belafonte, James Mason, Dorothy Dandridge, Joan Fontaine, Joan Collins and Jon Justin. Part of the film dealt with interracial relationships as Fontaine was crushing on Belafonte, and Justin was crushing on Dandridge.

This was in the years immediately following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. the Board of Education that began to unravel the “separate but equal” damage of Plessy v. Ferguson from 1896. The South was still entrenched in Jim Crow foolery, but integration was coming. Clinton High School students were studying in Oak Ridge because their school was destroyed by dynamite following a federal integration order in 1956. One of the agitators in that scenario was John “KKK” Kasper, who was popping up in Knoxville and Nashville and was such a degenerate that many local white hood chapters made a point to separate themselves from him.

The movie that caused all the ruckus (Photo: 20th Century-Fox)

Island in the Sun was released in June of 1957, but was slow making it to screens across the South because of this racist stupidity. Its initial opening in Chattanooga was shut down over threats of violence. But it opened here at the Tower and its sister theatre, the Pike (later the Capri Cinema, now Bennett Galleries) that August. On the 21st, the Klan showed up to complain. Knox County Sheriff’s Office sent a couple of cruisers out to keep traffic moving as about 40 yo-yos in their bed sheets and pointy hats picketed a movie they hadn’t seen. Thankfully no violence stemmed from it. They just showed up, looked dumb and left.

I asked my father and step-father if they remembered that incident, but neither did. My dad was studying at UT, and though he lived on Greenway Road then, his life was centered on campus and the Sigma Chi house. But he remembered 25 cents gained him entry, a Coca-Cola and a small popcorn as well and recalled an interesting double feature from 1953: Stalag 17 and Roman Holiday. My stepdad didn’t remember it either, he lived in North Hills at the time. But he said you always held on to your tickets because they were stamped on the back with one of the letters that spells tower. If you collected the whole word, you got free admission.

The Tower Theatre was built in 1947 by Walter Morris and opened in May 1948. In 1963, C.H. Simpson, who operated the original Riviera on Gay Street, leased the Tower and the Pike, changing their names to the Lenox and Capri respectively. The Tower/Lenox closed forever in late 1966 and soon after dismantled to make way for the reroute of Broadway and I-640 interchange.

Beth Kinnane writes a history feature for KnoxTNToday.com. It’s published each Tuesday and is one of our best-read features.

Sources: The Knoxville Journal digital archives

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