Historian Samuel Momodu wrote about the Tent Cities that existed in Haywood and Fayette Counties during the period December, 1959, through April, 1963.  He introduced the story:

The Tent Cities of Fayette and Haywood Counties in Tennessee were the result of early efforts to register African American voters in those counties between 1959 and 1962. When John McFerren of Fayette County and other activists began their voter registration drive, many of the potential voters were sharecroppers who were evicted from white-owned farms. McFerren and other activists created homes for evicted families in surplus Army tents on the farms of black landowners Shepard Towles and Gertrude Beasley which became known as Tent City. Black families lived in these tents from December 1959 until April 1963.

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