At 87 years old, Karl Meyer’s commitment to social justice is unwavering. For nearly seven decades, Meyer has been on the front lines of countless movements, advocating for the rights of a broad cross-section of communities. His journey as an activist began in New York City when he was just 20 years old. Inspired by the Catholic Worker Movement and Mahatma Gandhi, his first act of civil disobedience led to his arrest during a protest against compulsory nuclear air raid drills in 1957.
“Dorothy Day and Ammon Hennacy of The Catholic Worker were my strongest living mentors after my parents and after [Mahatma] Gandhi, who I started reading about the year he was assassinated,” Meyer said.
On Aug. 1, Meyer set out to test the response to breaking a Tennessee state law barring camping on state public property by setting up to rest on the Capitol lawn. While the state law went into place two years ago, Meyer wanted to see how officials would react after the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Grants vs. Johnson Pass said it is legal to punish someone for sleeping outside. Meyer was arrested by Tennessee State Troopers the morning after he slept on the lawn and given a misdemeanor citation for criminal trespassing and one for disorderly conduct. He’s slated for an Aug. 23 hearing in Judge Aaron Holt’s courtroom downtown.
“I have a very strong sense of empathy with people who are poor, homeless, underpaid, disabled,” Meyer said during a second effort to sleep on the lawn on Aug. 7. “So that’s why I do this; the real activists are the folks who have to do this every single night.”
This sense of needing to raise the issue to the surface has been the driving force behind Meyer’s work, particularly in his advocacy for the homeless and those in need of affordable housing.
Over the course of his 67 years of activism, Meyer has been arrested numerous times.
“When I slept outdoors here with just a drop cloth and an old blanket, it really aroused my sense of empathy,” Meyer said. “I think about people who have to do that 365 days a year, and it drives me to keep going.”
In 1997, Meyer moved to Nashville, where he initially planned to focus on urban gardening. However, the city’s growing housing crisis soon caught his attention, and he shifted his efforts toward restoring vacant houses for low-income residents.
“We invested whatever money we had to buy vacant houses in North Nashville. I’m a carpenter by trade, and we restored these houses,” Meyer said on Aug. 7. “We’ve always had low-income people and friends from the Catholic Worker Movement, and others living with us in any spare room that we had so this is about that kind of sustained action.”
Meyer participated in a 71-day sit-in at the Tennessee State Capitol in 2005. Alongside other activists, Meyer protested against Gov. Phil Bredesen’s cuts to TennCare, which left hundreds of thousands of people without health insurance.
“It was insane that people were losing their healthcare because they couldn’t get private insurance due to preexisting conditions,” Meyer said.
The sit-in, which involved camping out and sleeping in the Capitol’s corridors, drew significant media attention and highlighted the human cost of the TennCare cuts.
“We were arrested, but it was worth it,” he said.
Meyer points to a need for an intersectional view of advocacy. He has also been a vocal advocate for disability rights, participating in protests organized by the group ADAPT, a national grassroots community that organizes disability rights activists. Meyer describes one particularly impactful action in which he and other activists blocked the exits of the Legislative Plaza in Nashville, preventing lawmakers from leaving the Capitol.
“I’ve never done activism with a more courageous group of people than ADAPT,” Meyer said, recounting a day spent in the pouring rain alongside activists in wheelchairs and others with disabilities. “It was drizzling rain almost the whole day, but those people were determined. They’re some of the bravest people I’ve ever worked with.”
Meyer, who is planning continued action over the next few weeks, is hoping to garner an audience with Gov. Bill Lee through this nonviolent approach.
“I’ve been active not only in advocating for just and decent and compassionate social policy, which Dorothy Day really strongly believed in, as many of my mentors do and did, but I’ve also been active in direct service and direct cooperation with homeless people and with low income people who need affordable housing,” Meyer said. “There is a need for both.”