Belmont University
Demonstrators sitting at the McLellan’s lunch counter, 1960. Photograph courtesy of the Nashville Public Library.

Betsy Phillips

Peace Summit: A Reflection on the Past, A Call to Action

Betsy Phillips

Betsy Phillips

Vanderbilt University Press; Author, Dynamite Nashville 

Betsy Phillips is the trade acquisitions editor for Vanderbilt University Press. She has written for the Nashville Scene and the Washington Post. Her fiction has appeared in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Apex Magazine, among others. She was named 2019 Best Historian in the Best of Nashville edition of the Nashville Scene and has served on the board of Historic Nashville, Inc. She lives in Whites Creek, Tennessee.

In Dynamite Nashville, award-winning historian Betsy Phillips delves into three unsolved bombings in Nashville: Hattie Cotton Elementary School (1957), the Jewish Community Center (1958), and the home of Civil Rights attorney and city councilman Z. Alexander Looby (1960).

Through meticulous research, Phillips not only exposes "The Confederate Underground" and its principal leader, J.B. Stoner, but also honors the resilience of Nashville’s Civil Rights movement. She brings overdue recognition to unsung hero Z. Alexander Looby, whose near-martyrdom underscored the sacrifices made by so many in the fight for racial justice. Dynamite Nashville provides a crucial lens into a dark chapter of Nashville’s history and its lasting implications for the Civil Rights era.