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Nissan Donates $25,000 to Civil Rights Training for Nashville Police

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The Nissan Foundation

The relationship between minorities and the police has been a hot button topic in the United States for quite a while now, and the discussion has only turned more intense in the wake of our current election season. Rather than shy away from the controversy, though, Nissan is attempting to do something about it.

Today the Japanese automaker—which has its American operations headquartered in Franklin, Tennessee—announced a $25,000 donation to support a unique civil rights training program for local law enforcement. The contribution is coming in the form of a grant from the Nissan Foundation to the Nashville Public Library Foundation, to support the library’s civil rights training partnership with the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

The library’s “Civil Rights and a Civil Society: Civil Rights Training for Nashville Enforcement Agencies and Beyond” began in 2015 as a program for new police officers, and has since expanded to include school groups and other entities.

“The Nissan Foundation is proud to support NPLF and NPL’s mission to enrich lives and open doors to new ways of understanding our neighbors and the world we live in,” says Nissan North America executive Scott Becker.

The program uses the archival images, oral histories, and historic film footage found in the Nashville Public Library’s Civil Rights Room. Using this historical framework, participants can have a conversation about the modern dynamics of the increasingly diverse Nashville community.

“We thank Nissan for its support of Nashville Public Library’s programming to cultivate a more inclusive and tolerant Nashville,” said Nashville Public Library Foundation President Tari Hughes. “We are honored to be selected as one of the leading culturally diverse and relevant programs in a community that serves as a home to Nissan’s U.S. operations.”