The Plague Year: America in the Time of Covid

by Lawrence Wright

First, he and Cynthia had to complete residencies. They wanted to be in the same town, a problem many professional couples face, but additionally complicated in their case because Cynthia is Black. She suggested Nashville: he could apply to Vanderbilt Medical School and she to Meharry Medical College, a historically Black institution. Tennessee had only just repealed its ban on interracial marriages, more than a decade after the Supreme Court struck down miscegenation laws, but attitudes were slow to change. Driving back to Kansas on Christmas Eve, Graham stopped in at Vanderbilt. He asked for an application form and was surprised to find that the director of the residency program, Dr. Thomas Brittingham, was at his desk and willing to interview him right then. Afterwards, as Graham was leaving, he said to Brittingham, “I know this is the South. I’m going to marry a Black woman, and if that makes a difference, I can’t come here.” “Close the door,” said Brittingham. He turned out to be a closet integrationist and an ardent proponent of interracial marriage. He welcomed Graham on the spot. Cynthia was accepted at Meharry, and so they made a home in Nashville.