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​​​Meharry School of Medicine 91st Commencement 1966 Announcement Tennessee

Meharry Medical College was founded in 1876 in Nashville, Tennessee by the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Freedman’s Aid Society. The institution began because of the donation of a scots-Irish immigrant salt trader Samuel Meharry. Back in the 1820’s, on a dark rainy night, Meharry was hauling a load of salt when his wagon slid off the road and into a ditch. With nowhere to go he searched for help and stumbled across a recently freed African American family. Despite the family being vulnerable to slave hunters who were out to take them back into slavery, they took him in for the night and helped him to get his wagon back on the road the next day. The act of kindness touched Meharry so deeply that he vowed to do something in the future to honor them and help African American people. Over 40 years later he, along with his brothers, were able to make a $30,000 donation to Central Tennessee Colleges emerging medical education which grew to become Meharry Medical College.
Sources:http://www.mmc.edu/education/som/aboutus/somhistory.html#:~:text=early%20History,rainy%20night%20in%20the%201820s.&text=In%201876%2C%20the%20Meharry%20Medical,admitted%20its%20first%2011%20students. And https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/meharry-medical-college-1876/
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