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Marchers carrying sign for NAACP Montgomery branch, ca. March 25, 1965
Herman Beaman "Keek" Nash, Jr., was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on August 18, 1926, to Grace Leonard, a former teacher, and Herman B. Nash, a postal worker who had served in World War I. The second of three children, Nash and his brothers, Howard and John, enjoyed a comfortable childhood during the Great Depression. Nicknaming himself "Skeezix" (which was quickly shortened to "Keek") to distinguish himself from his father, Nash attended Van Sickle Junior High School in Springfield. He took college-level courses in educational theory at American International College while attending Classical High School, from which he graduated in 1944. Raised in the Congregationalist church, he took religion seriously and attended church services regularly, and even exchanged bible verses with a sweetheart. After high school, Nash enlisted in the United States Army.
Nash first went into the Army Specialized Training Program at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. From there he was transferred to Camp Blanding in Florida, where he was part of the 190th Training Battalion. While in Florida, Nash was selected for an intensive language program that would train him in Japanese. Sent to the University of Chicago in March of 1945, Nash entered a city that was growing and changing in the wake of several waves of racial migration and ethnic immigration, and it what he saw of the lives of African Americans and tensions among blacks and whites affected him deeply. In the fall of 1945, on a break from his classes, Nash traveled to Gary, Indiana, for a rally, headlined by Frank Sinatra, promoting race tolerance at a high school; a photograph of him with a fellow black soldier he had befriended on the train ride there appeared in a
In Osaka, Nash served as a special investigator for the G-2 Intelligence Division, keeping weekly reports on military activity, civilian attitudes, rationing, black market smuggling rings, inflation, illegal gun sales, a kidnapping circle, labor agitation, and the Shinto religion, including a warlike Shinto sect. He became very attached to Japan and its culture and collected Japanese postcards, stamps, and other paraphernalia, and long after he left the country he would keep in contact with numerous friends made there. In August of 1946 Nash was reassigned to the Tokai-Hokuriku Military Government Team as an advance agent for educational survey and development projects in local Japanese schools and universities. His duties included inspecting schools, evaluating and dismissing militaristic teachers and leaders, reviewing textbooks, and "keeping things moving in a Democratic direction," as he wrote in a letter to his parents. This new job brought him to Nagoya, where he continued to explore the culture and language of the Japanese people as well as expanding his appreciation for education and teaching.
In his position at the Headquarters for Military Government in Nagoya, Nash oversaw the investigation of local Buddhist and Shinto religions, watching them for subversive acts and anti-American rhetoric, but he also had a more personal interest. He had long been fascinated by religion, and although raised a Congregationalist, he regularly attended services for Methodists, Jews, Buddhists, and many other denominations, to further his own understanding of religion and to expand his knowledge of the world as a whole. While in Japan, Nash began to study Buddhism and explored many of the country's temples and religious monuments. For a time he considered becoming a Christian missionary so that he might return to Japan to teach in a religious capacity. After completing his term of service, Nash was honorably discharged and returned home to Massachusetts in 1947.
While attending classes at American International College, Nash lectured at local churches and at Classical High School about his time in the service and the religions and culture of Japan. It was around this time that Nash came upon an article by Reverend Clarence V. Howell, leader of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith social justice organization promoting peace and working to improve race relations through education. In 1948 Nash moved to New York City, where he lectured for the Fellowship on topics relating to the urban poor as well as on his experiences in Japan. It was here that he met Yoneko Tajitsu, a Japanese American visiting nurse who had been interned at the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Idaho. The two fell in love, were married by Howell on June 17, 1951, and moved to an apartment in the Bronx. Nash was becoming increasingly radical; he joined the United World Federalists, collected Marxist and Socialist newsletters and publications, and became a member of the Jefferson School of Social Science, an organization which would soon be targeted by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Committee.
The 1950s in New York were a very active time for Herman Nash. In 1956, he took a job as a brakeman on the New York Central Railroad and became active in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Engineermen. He stayed with the railroad until around 1957, when he decided to return to school, earning a master's degree in education from Columbia Teachers College. He and Yon moved to Maywood, New Jersey, and in 1959 he started work as a chemistry teacher at Teaneck High School. Teaneck would be the new battleground in Nash's life, where he pushed for safer laboratory standards, fought against the racial prejudices of his fellow teachers, and created a friendly and open classroom environment known for its emphasis on rigorous academic inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge. By 1961 the couple had four children, Philip, Paul, Alice, and Thomas, rounding out the family that Nash would come to call "HAPPY to a T," a play on the family's initials. Yon later returned to school to pursue a master's degree in Special Education at William Patterson College in New Jersey. After teaching for some years, she worked in publishing and in retirement was active with the Maywood Library.
In March 1965, Nash traveled to Selma, Alabama, to join Martin Luther King, Jr., on his march to Montgomery, an experience he captured in a series of photographs. This event may have helped fuel his high standards for Teaneck and his determination to promote equality in the classroom. In March 1969, Nash and some of his students staged a sit-in in the principal's office to protest the inequality in the ways vocational and college-bound students were being educated. Threatened with arrest, the protesters relocated to the superintendent's office, at which point Nash was removed and suspended from teaching. He was also sentenced to six months in jail, a sentence which was finally reversed after a protracted legal battle that reached the New Jersey State Supreme Court. Unable to return to his job at Teaneck, Nash returned to the railroads, this time as an engineer for the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) where he remained until his retirement in the late 1980s. At Conrail he again became active in the rail workers union, integrating his unionization efforts with fair practices in regard to race. His mother passed away in 1973 and his father in 1977.
After his retirement, Nash and Yon had a brief battle over Yon's benefits from the United States Railroad Retirement Board before finally settling into a more slow-paced life, trading letters with his children and grandchildren while writing his memoirs. In 2004, after almost forty-five years in Maywood, Yon and Nash relocated to San Diego to enjoy their retirement. Just three weeks after the move, Yon died suddenly of a bleeding ulcer. Nash continued to live in San Diego until his own death in June 2010.
The records of an accomplished activist and humanist, the Nash Papers offer a view into the life of a socially conscious and broad-minded veteran of World War II. Nash's personal correspondence, which comprises a significant portion of the collection, spans most of his life, beginning in his high school years. It includes letters home from his time in the military and correspondence with friends he met while in Japan, as well as years of weekly correspondence with his parents. Much of the collection includes material from Nash's military service, particularly his time in occupied Japan, such as the G-2 intelligence reports on the reaction of the local population to the occupation, military publications and newsletters, and photographs and memorabilia from Osaka and Nagoya. Most of the balance of the collection pertains to Nash's interests in social justice causes, including pamphlets, journals, clippings, speeches, writings, and documents related to his work in railroad unions, education, educational equality, and civil rights demonstrations.
The collection is open for research.
Acquired from Alice Nash, 2015.
Processed by Jack Mulvaney, 2017. Additional processing 2018-2019.
Nash-Scott Family Papers (MS 581)
Selected materials from the Nash Papers have been digitized and may be
The bulk of the correspondence comprises letters written by and to Herman Nash, Jr. Nash's correspondents include friends in Springfield and later Maywood, pen pals from Japan, religious institutions, and individuals who attended his lectures and educational sessions. There are also letters to and from members of Nash's family, including his wife, Yoneko, his parents, his siblings, and his children. Nash's own letters and those of his immediate family members are at the front of the series, arranged chronologically, with the rest of the correspondence arranged alphabetically. Some photographs are filed in this series.
Diaries, reading logs, writings and poetry from Nash's school days, and a variety of notes and lists comprise this small series, which also includes a memoir of sorts, "No Joke! A Thoughtful Life," assembled by Nash's daughter Alice, and other short autobiographical writings.
Although the material in this series spans Nash's life, a large portion consists of materials he kept from his army training and his time in Japan, including G-2 intelligence reports and other documents relating to occupied Japan, photographs and papers, and civil rights materials. There is also material relating to his family, his work in unions at both New York Central/Pennsylvania Central and Consolidated Railroads, his involvement in the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and his interest in religion and other subjects, as well as material relating to his teaching and his subsequent dismissal. This series includes photographs, notably a set of snapshots from the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.
This series includes several collections and individual items saved by Nash. Among them are his postcard collection, begun in childhood and added to throughout his life, and his stamp collection, which is similarly extensive. Also included are several awards and childhood souvenirs as well as buttons, souvenir photographs and other printed items Nash kept from his time in Japan, and a fan given to him by the Kita Fire Brigade.
This series consists of full publications, such as newspapers, pamphlets, and newsletters, as well as clippings. Many are connected to Nash's military service, but most of the pamphlets are socialist or left-leaning literature, concerned with politics and social justice. The clippings, from newspapers and magazines, were collected chiefly by Nash and his mother and cover his time in high school and the military service, local events, and World War II. Clippings are foldered as they were donated.