In the fore front of the mural is Diane Nash an American civil rights activist, and a leader and strategist of the student wing of the civil rights movement.

On this day on  April 19, 1960 Diane Nash, supported by C.T. Vivian, led lead 3,000 people including students from Fisk University, Tennessee State University, and American Baptist College as they marched down Jefferson Street to downtown Nashville to appeal to Mayor Ben West to desegregate lunch counters.

Nash's campaigns were among the most successful of the era. Her efforts included the first successful civil rights campaign to integrate lunch counters; the Freedom Riders, who desegregated interstate travel; co-founding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and co-initiating the Alabama Voting Rights Project and working on the Selma Voting Rights Movement. This helped gain Congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which authorized the federal government to oversee and enforce state practices to ensure that African Americans and other minorities were not prevented from registering and voting.

In July 2022, Nash was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.