Charles M. Cooper
Charles M. Cooper was the first African American professional Scouter for the Nashville Council. Hired on to the Council staff in June 1943 as a Field Executive, Cooper headed the Colored Division, what would be called the J. C. Napier division beginning in 1944.
Born in Chattanooga, Cooper graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1926. By the 1930s Cooper was in middle Tennessee. He served as the Sunday School Superintendent for Spruce Street Baptist Church and was a founding member of the Tuskegee Club, an alumni club for his alma mater. And by at least 1938, he was involved as Scoutmaster of Troop 79, sponsored by Spruce Street Baptist.
Along with Commissioner George Anderson and Division Chairman E. J. Turner, Cooper took the Nashville Council’s Colored Division to a new level. The division had existed for over a decade by 1943, but it was under Cooper that the Division secured a dedicated office in the Morris Memorial Building and held the longest summer camp program in the history of the division at four weeks. He expanded “colored Scouting” into Tullahoma, Pulaski, and Columbia. Land was purchased for what would become Camp Burton. The division also held an annual field day and bi-annual courts of honor. Under Cooper, the Division saw its first ever Eagle Scout in December 1944.
Cooper resigned from Scouting in May 1949. The most likely explanation is that Cooper resigned in protest over the reorganization of the Nashville Council into the Middle Tennessee Council in January 1949. The reorganization led to the creation of districts and the hiring of district executives to cover the 38 county service area. Despite his success and reach over the exact same service area, the Napier Division did not receive a similar expansion to growing Scouting.
Cooper remained involved as a volunteer, serving as a district commissioner and committee chair in the 1950s. He passed away in March 1987, one of the great unsung heroes of middle Tennessee Scouting. We can find no photo, but he is at least mentioned here in the baton hand-off from Anderson to Akers in September 1947 (_Nashville Banner_).