nashville – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Meharry Medical College

By Scott J. Pearson | January 1, 2025January 1, 2025 by Scott J. Pearson

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…

Religion-Philosophy Society

Revolutionary Nonviolence: Organizing for Freedom by James M. Lawson, Jr.

By Scott J. Pearson | December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 by Scott J. Pearson

In hindsight, concepts about nonviolence indeed have proven the most revolutionary ideas from the twentieth century. The century itself was marred by mass violence – two World Wars, communist revolutions, the invention of the atomic bomb, and a Cold War threatening imminent destruction. Yet nonviolence exploited its foothold. Mahatma Ghandi used nonviolence to lead India to independence from the British Empire. Polish protestors used nonviolence to usher in the fall of communism. And civil-rights protestors…

Healthcare Society

Hot Spot: A Doctor’s Diary from the Pandemic

By Scott J. Pearson | May 15, 2022May 15, 2022 by Scott J. Pearson

The pandemic era provided the world many types of stories that have not been seen in generations, at least since the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. Healthcare workers and governmental leaders had the most stress refracted their way. Jahangir, a colleague and trauma surgeon at Vanderbilt Medical Center and chair of the board of health in Metro Nashville, served in both roles. What was naively thought to last perhaps only weeks or even a few…

Biography-Memoir Society

The People’s Plaza: 62 Days of Nonviolent Resistance

By Scott J. Pearson | April 18, 2022October 20, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

Full disclosure: I am professionally employed Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The Medical Center, though a separate fiscal and legal entity, shares the Vanderbilt name with Vanderbilt University, whose press publishes this book. Nashville, Tennessee, is a historic town in the move for civil rights. In fact, locals just call it “the movement.” That movement is very much alive, in Nashville and in America, as the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 have recently shown. This…