David Cook is the award-winning city columnist for the Times Free Press, working in the same building where he began his post-college career as a sportswriter for the Chattanooga Free Press. Cook, who graduated from Red Bank High, holds a master's degree in Peace and Justice Studies from Prescott College and an English degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. For 12 years, he was a teacher at the middle, high school and university levels. A Marshall Memorial Fellow, Cook published in magazines (The Sun, Utne Reader, Geez), academic journals, an anthology on homelessness ("Personal Struggles, Professional Lives: Ethics and Advocacy in Research on Homelessness" — Lexington Press) and an anthology on grandparents and grandchildren ("Grandparenting with Heart" — North Atlantic).
Perhaps we're wrong.
by David CookTwelve months ago, a group of 200 of us began a sort of liturgical and social experiment: We spent a year reading Martin Luther King Jr.
by David CookIs this the year our Confederate statue finally comes down?
by David CookNeed a unique Christmas gift?
by David CookWhen my wife was pregnant with our two children I felt many things: elation, trepidation, awe.
by David CookLet's look back at Thursday.
by David CookHe was 17. A child, essentially.
by David CookEight years ago, I first met Joe Jenkins.
by David CookRun, Katherlyn Geter, run. And Vicki Gregg. And Ardena Garth, you should run, too.
by David CookIn the summer of 2012, Gail McKeel noticed the strangest thing: A few blocks away from her east Chattanooga home, people on Glass Street were partying.
by David CookYears ago, I read Rod Dreher's "The Benedict Option," which calls for Christians to intentionally withdraw from 21st century society.
by David CookI remember the Confederama. And touring battlefields in grade school, big yellow buses parked beside huge rows of wooden, rampart-like fencing. We ate sack lunches and played tag near the graves of thousands.
by David CookEarlier this summer, my wife and I spent a lovely morning with Ann Brown, a retired librarian who lives on Lookout Mountain with husband Howard.
by David CookIn these Afghanistan-collapsing, Ida-wrecking, COVID-killing days, I've been trying to focus on something, well, different.
by David CookOn Thursday, Sept. 16, the Ed Johnson Memorial Dedication begins, lasting four days, with more than a dozen events: a courthouse church service, discussions with Eddie Glaude Jr., Jon Meacham, artist Jerome Meadows, panels, lectures, walking tours and Sunday's memorial dedication.
by David CookThe man in line at the feed store was buying three tubes of ivermectin, a horse dewormer.
by David CookPaul McDaniel was 14 or 15 when he took a job working for a white boss.
by David CookThe new Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of critical race theory — passed in May, now affecting thousands of state teachers and students — seems to be written by white men who have little understanding of race or education.
by David CookOn Friday, there were 50 Tennessee children hospitalized because of COVID-19, according to state data.
by David CookJaLonnie Mack was 15 and pregnant with nowhere to turn. Then, she found Baby University.
by David Cook