Tennessee School for the Blind founder Rev. James Champlin was born in 1920
Bean Station, Tennessee and grew up in
Overton County. From 1944 to 1965, Black students attended the Tennessee School for the Blind at the Rolling Mill Hill campus at 88 Hermitage Avenue, just south of downtown Nashville. White students continued to study at the Claiborne House until 1952, when a new campus was constructed on the Clover Bottom Farm in
Donelson, TN. The State of Tennessee purchased the Clover Bottom Farm in 1949 and set aside acreage for the construction of the new campus. When the school racially integrated in 1965, about 30 Black students integrated with about 150 white students at the Clover Bottom campus, leaving the Rolling Mill Hill campus empty. An alumnus, Ralph Brewer, stated that he did not recall problems that occurred as a result of desegregation. ==Campus==