Decision to rename Hadley Park for Freedom Riders not expected for months

“Although the park was named by Eugene Lewis, then the director of the Nashville Parks and Recreation Department, the person for whom it was named remains a contentious question, with some accounts citing the repentant slave owner John L. Hadley, while others point to Dr. W.A. Hadley, a prominent Africa American physician with whom Lewis worked on the planning of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition of 1897,” the Cultural Landscape Foundation wrote on its website.