Editing Scouting in Tennessee (section)

==Early history (1910–1950)==
The boy scouts were chartered in Tennessee in 1910. Until 1974, some Tennessee councils of the Boy Scouts of America were racially segregated. (The Old Hickory council did not integrate until 1974.) Colored Troops, as they were officially known, were given little support from some Districts and Councils.   Some Scouting executives and leaders believed that Colored Scouts and Leaders would be less able to live up to the ideals of the Boy Scouts.{{cn|date=March 2024}}

In 1917 the first girl scout troops in Nashville and elsewhere in Tennessee began meeting.  In 1922 Knox County received a charter.  In 1926 the Nashville Girl Scout Council was chartered.<ref name="midtenn">{{cite web|url=http://www.gsmidtn.org/page.cfm?pid=96|title=Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee History|access-date=2008-12-21|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090125080359/http://gsmidtn.org/page.cfm?pid=96|archive-date=2009-01-25}}</ref><ref name="tanasi">{{cite web|url=http://www.tanasi.org/content/view/6/20/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071029222224/http://www.tanasi.org/content/view/6/20/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-10-29 |title=Girl Scouts of Tanasi Council history}}</ref> Most [[Girl Scouts of the USA]] units were originally [[Racial segregation|segregated]] by [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]] according to state and local laws and customs. In 1924, [[Josephine Groves Holloway|Josephine Groves]] then working at a shelter for African-American mothers and families in need in Nashville heard about Girl Scouting and attended a training course for leaders.  She brought scouting back to the girls at the shelter; however, none of this was official since both she and they were African-American.  She married, becoming Josephine Groves Holloway, and left her job at the shelter but continue to encourage scouting.  In 1933 she requested recognition for her troop from the local council; it was refused until 1942 when permission for the first official African-American Girl Scout troop in Tennessee was given. She also help fully desegregate the Cumberland Valley council in 1962.<ref name="midtenn" /><ref name="groves">{{cite book | others = Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, Tenn. | author=Elisabeth Israels Perry| title = Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture | orig-year = 1998 | url = http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net | access-date = 2006-09-08 | edition = Online | year = 2002  | chapter = Josephine Groves Holloway | chapter-url = http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=641 }}</ref>