Doctor's Building

Here on the corner you’ll see the beautiful Renaissance Revival structure that is over 100 years old. This is called the Doctors’ Building and if you look closely at the cornices on the third story you can see the shield of the Medici family from the Italian Renaissance. Why? The family began not as bankers but as healers. Medici is the plural of medico, which means “medical doctor.” 

In the 1940s the Doctors’ Building became a part of Civil Rights history when a Jewish doctor opened his medical practice to patients regardless of race. Dr. Laurence A. Grossman was a professor at Vanderbilt University’s School of Medicine, and his office was on the third floor. As a WWII veteran, Dr. Grossman fought and worked alongside Black servicemen. He saw firsthand the double standard of segregation in the armed forces. More broadly, the fight against fascism in World War II forced Americans to confront its own contradictions after 1945. If the United States was indeed a society based on democracy, equality, and freedom—then such rights must be extended to include all citizens.

Dr. Grossman said, “I spent many years in the armed forces of World War II with [B]lack soldiers… If the Lord was good enough to let me come back to my wife and children, there would be no segregated citizens in my life.” A man of true conviction, he opened his medical practice to African Americans in 1947. As a result, he received death threats and met resistance from his white patients and medical colleagues. Dr. Grossman did not relent. In 1961, he helped desegregate the Nashville Academy of Medicine. Just as the sit-ins made Nashville the first southern city to begin the desegregation of its lunch counters, the city was also one of the first to have a desegregated medical academy.

Walk back across Seventh Ave. and then cross Church St. Turn LEFT to reach the front of the Main Branch of the Nashville Public Library. Listen to the first part of the narration as you enter the library and head to the second floor to explore the Civil Rights Room in Special Collections. Then follow the instructions to the second part of the stop.