Let me tell you about Betsy Phillips. In the early Aughts, Phillips blogged about the wild dogs of Whites Creek, and in a way she still does — just replace “wild dogs” with “bad men” and “Whites Creek” with “the state legislature.” Phillips writes a weekly column for the Scene, and in 2017 decided to dig into the 1957 bombing of Hattie Cotton Elementary School. That story sent her down the rabbit hole that became Dynamite Nashville, a book about three integration-era bombings in Nashville. Knowing what it took to finish this book, to get the FBI files and the emotional toll involved, it has been astounding to see the resulting events unfold. Mayor Freddie O’Connell recently appointed a cold-case homicide detective to reexamine the bombings. Phillips just wanted to tell the truth about Nashville’s racist past, and now, thanks to this book, the investigation is reopened.
