With Joseph Richie, Genma Holmes and Dr. Edwin Hines.
Earlier this month, Nashville radio host Genma Holmes invited Dr. Edwin Hines to join me for a conversation on Strong Inside for her show, Living Your Best Life. Dr. Hines attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville at the time Perry Wallace was at Vanderbilt, and his perspective on those times made for a fascinating discussion. Dr. Hines asked for the opportunity to provide a guest review of Strong Inside for this site, and I am honored to post his review here:
In his new book, Strong Inside: Perry Wallace and the Collision of Race and Sports in the South, Andrew Maraniss describes a critical and turbulent time in race relations in America in a sensitive and well detailed examination of the events surrounding the first two African-American basketball players to attend a SEC school. Perry Wallace, a championship athlete and highly recruited product of segregated Nashville, is described with objective detail as a brilliant, reserved, courageous, and introspective scholar who chooses to attend elite Vanderbilt University in his hometown. The sensitive and unbiased story, written by a northern born Vanderbilt student of some years after the events of the book, is compelling reading. The book paints an unflinching look at events, both positive and negative, that defined the difficulties and realities of serving as pioneers in what is described as difficult times in southern collegiate sports as the civil rights movement was in full swing. What might easily have become an opportunity to create his own reality thru the book’s narrative was meticulously avoided by Mr. Maraniss. Instead he very skillfully maintained an interesting and objective overview of the overall true drama. Andrew Maraniss is to be congratulated for writing this important and very well written book about an important and previously unheralded hero. This book has my highest recommendation. It is a must read!
Edwin H. Hines, DDS was a student in Nashville at Meharry Medical College during the unfolding events of this book. Attending Meharry’s school of dentistry from 1967 thru 1971, he was very much aware of many the events described in the book. Dr. Hines has been a educator at Meharry since 1974 and presently is professor emeritus of pediatric dentistry at the school.