Soon after Emancipation, large efforts were required to meet the needs of formerly enslaved people. A medical college was founded in Nashville as a department of Central Tennessee College to train black doctors to address the needs of the underserved blacks across the country. Now called Meharry Medical College almost 150 years later, the school continues to educate healthcare professionals and advance “the worship of God through service to man.” This book chronicles its history in pictures, segmented by the terms of its presidential leaders.
Meharry is proudly a historically black college or university, or HBCU. Despite being chronically underfunded, these schools have advocated for and met the needs of underserved populations with force. Meharry reached recent prominence during the COVID pandemic thanks to its president who spoke truth to millions of patients on federal panels. Many black Nashvillians only trust Meharry with their medical care.
Living in Nashville, I enjoyed reading this pictorial history of this fine institution. I was encouraged to see elements of the “beloved community” form shortly after the Civil War to meet the needs of the newly freed. Even then, whites and blacks came together to meet human needs – a calling befitting of medicine that still inspires today. Having visited Meharry’s campus, I fondly recalled the beauty of its architecture from my memories.
This book should be on the shelves of all Meharry alumni dispersed across the United States and the world. Further, it presents an opportunity to educate the wider public about the challenges of HBCUs. Unfortunately, they are still underfunded compared to similar institutions serving white populations. Books like this can educate us all about those historic wrongs while bringing out the immense human good that HBCUs have done in the past. Perhaps we can get it more right in future decades…
Meharry Medical College
By Sandra Martin Parham
Copyright (c) 2021
Arcadia Publishing
ISBN13 9781467106535
Page Count: 127
Genre: Healthcare, Education, History
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