Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer

by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

With the objectivity and insight of a scholar and the love and admiration of a daughter, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot recounts the extraordinary life of her mother, Dr. Margaret Morgan-Lawrence, one of the first African-American women to graduate from both Cornell University and Columbia University's School of Medicine to become a physician. 22 pages of photos.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is an American sociologist who examines the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles. She has been a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education since the 1970s.

Reviews

[Caysie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond the fact that she was my favorite professor and one of THE MOST amazing women I have been fortunate enough to know, SLL is a fantastic author. Rarely does an autobiographical work really demonstrate just how everyone must have felt during the eras that span the great text."Balm.." gives great insight to her own family history and really forces you to think about your own...where you came from, who worked to get you where you are and what you can do to further the generations after you. I love her and I love her writing.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting biography. Well, biographies can be the best books. In this one, Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, a professor of sociology at Harvard, tells of the life of her mother, Margaret Lawrence, one of our country's first African American child psychiatrists. The daughter of an Episcopalean minister in Mississippi, Margaret from a young age knows she wants to be a doctor. She spends part of her high school years in Harlem, living with her aunts--the description of the way her family and community in the south and elsewhere support her in her goals, is moving--and then becoming the only Black undergraduate at Cornell University. Because she is not allowed to live in the dorms, she acts as a live-in maid in white people's houses and takes classes during the day. . . . She becomes an activist as a young intern at Harlem Hospital and at Columbia University and teaches at a nearby college while her husband, a sociologist also from Mississippi, teaches at Fisk. The book describes issues of colorism in the community--Margaret's mother looks white--as well as direct and subtle ways Margaret is halted because of her race and gender. This was an absorbing, complicated, vital book about an important woman.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This lady can WRITE. And further, she can speak. I had her for a grad class at HGSE, and every word she spoke was the perfect one, shimmering jewels she strung class after class without seeming to try. In fact, she sounded so perfect I was relieved to notice her pause once before selecting the word "shrubs" when describing where a lost ball had fled. A small point--she could have used "bushes" or "vegetation" or whatever, but that pause and her choice has stayed with me all these years (had her in '96-'97). A friend who had dropped out of high school accompanied me to class one day, and Ms Lawrence-Lightfoot had her mesmerized, too: my friend barely blinked her eyes or shifted in her chair, so absorbed was she in the tapestry of SLL's lecture.

All this to say that if a person can speak so beautifully, even extemporaneously, you can only begin to imagine the loveliness of her written work. I give this four stars not so much because of the story as for the sense of poetry of her style.

[India · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balm in Gilead is intelligent and beautifully written by a writer who's quite accomplished in the area of self-ralization. It's more or less a black family history, spanning three generations, permeated with delightful and deep insight into black (later called African American) culture.

[Blackbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a clear open style. She's my hero.

[Marsha Snyder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met the author while I was at Bowdoin and she signed my copy of this book. It is a powerful story.

[Chrisanne]

Stephen Carter recommended this book and I had never heard of Dr. Lawrence before, so I thought I would see if I could get a copy.

It was fascinatingly candid. Margaret Morgan Lawrence was a child psychologist who, according to Google, passed away in 2019. I love the way we see mental illness through her eyes. I love the way we see trauma, science, and history through her eyes. And, most of all, I love seeing healing through her eyes. I wish that there was an updated edition. She lived to be over 100 and so I'm sure there was more to say(this one ended about 30 years before then).

[LBHam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started it. Skipped ahead several times. Finally put it down. I wanted to like it but didn’t like the writing - I felt the writer wasn’t discerning about facts and quotes that should or shouldn’t be included to tell this story. Bummer.

[Jasmin]

read for class !

[Ariel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a page-turner, even though it's a biography of the author's mother, which doesn't normally bode well. It might be particularly interesting for those interested in medical or black history.

[Pmandell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book many years ago. Parts of it still come back to me on a frequent basis. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot writes beautifully. The story is interesting historically and it is also inspirational. This is one of those books I will never give away!

[Genevieve Aguilar]

September book for Latinas Literarias book club

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was the thing that made me think, maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go to Harvard, after all.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was good but the writing was a little bit on the scattered side. Some of the time frames were hard to follow. I would recommend it as it is a story that should be known.

[Shawna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written. I loved this book about her mother's journey to becoming a doctor in the segregated south and a prejudiced north. Abruptly ended; however, which was disappointing

[Denise Mitnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly inspirational for women!