We had King Hollands as a neighbor for over 20 years. That's long enough to really know someone—long enough that his absence still feels present. He passed away in December 2023, and Nashville's a little bit less today because of it.
What strikes you first when you learn about King Hollands is the list of firsts and achievements: one of the first Black students to desegregate Father Ryan High School in 1954. Part of the Woolworth's sit-ins that challenged the segregation of downtown Nashville's lunch counters. President of Organized Neighbors of Edgehill. A voice on the Metro Human Relations Commission. A fighter for preservation of our city's African American history. A friend.
But here's the thing about King—and this is what the news articles don't quite capture—he was also just a person. Brimming with warmth. Brimming with love. The kind of neighbor who showed up. The kind of person who didn't treat justice like a distant ideal; he lived it, day in and day out, in the way he treated people around him.
It would be easy to file King away in the history books, to think of him as someone important but distant. But he wasn't distant. He was ours. And we miss him.
