Scouting in Memphis: a History of the Chickasaw Council, BSA

by G. Wayne Dowdy

One of the most important scouting communities in the United States was the City of Memphis. In 1915 the city established the Chickasaw Council to oversee scouting activities in Memphis and the following year it affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America. During the course of its 100 years of existence the Chickasaw Council not only educated tens of thousands of young men in leadership and honorable values but through its many service projects transformed the public life of the city. Memphis also played a major role in bringing the benefits of Scouting to African Americans who were initially barred from participating in the program.

Kindle Edition

Published September 7, 2016

About the author

G. Wayne Dowdy is the agency manager of the Memphis Public Library and Information Center's history department and Memphis and Shelby County Room. He holds a Master's Degree in history from the University of Arkansas, is a certified archives manager and is a member of the Tennessee Historical Records Advisory Board. He is the author of Mayor Crump don't like it: Machine Politics in Memphis; Hidden History of Memphis; Crusades for Freedom: Memphis and the Political Transformation of the American South, a Brief History of Memphis and On This Day in Memphis History. Dowdy has served as a consultant for the NBC-TV series who do you think you are? and the PBS series History Detectives: Special Investigation. The host of the WYPL-TV program the Memphis Room, Dowdy has appeared on C-Span, NOS Dutch Public Radio and the documentaries Overton Park: a Century of Change, Memphis memoirs: Downtown and Citizens not Subjects: Reawakening Democracy in Memphis.