The Ride To Nashville

The Ride to Nashville is a timeless and powerful story of a young father and son's struggle to forge a relationship during a fateful drive to Nashville, Tennessee. This moving novel chronicles the coming of age 9 year old Richard, a bright yet sheltered boy, who has been raised by his well-meaning grandmother following his parents divorce. As Richard travels with his father from rural LaCosta County, Georgia to Nashville for his medical school graduation, their journey is marked by vicious racism as they attempt to use public restrooms, buy gas, and to have a flat tire repaired. Stirred by the harsh realities that he painfully witnesses, Richard finds the courage to boldly confront his father about the pain he fells from years of neglect and disappointments. Eloquently written and based on his true life story, Dr. Robert Martin Screen navigates readers through an adventurous journey back to the racist climate of the south during the early 1940s, as he uncovers father and son's heartbreaking struggle to restore the breach.

The Ride to Nashville is a timeless and powerful story of a young father and son's struggle to forge a relationship during a fateful drive to Nashville, Tennessee. This moving novel chronicles the coming of age 9 year old Richard, a bright yet sheltered boy, who has been raised by his well-meaning grandmother following his parents divorce. As Richard travels with his father from rural LaCosta County, Georgia to Nashville for his medical school graduation, their journey is marked by vicious racism as they attempt to use public restrooms, buy gas, and to have a flat tire repaired. Stirred by the harsh realities that he painfully witnesses, Richard finds the courage to boldly confront his father about the pain he fells from years of neglect and disappointments. Eloquently written and based on his true life story, Dr. Robert Martin Screen navigates readers through an adventurous journey back to the racist climate of the south during the early 1940s, as he uncovers father and son's heartbreaking struggle to restore the breach.

Dr. Robert Martin Screen was born in Augusta, Georgia and was among the last graduating class at Haines Institute. He went on to receive his bachelor's degree in English from Hampton Institute, his M. A. degree in Speech Pathology from New York University, and his Ph.D in Audiology and Speech Sciences from Michigan State University. His further study also included a one-year stay at the University Iowa's Writer's Workshop. It was this period in his training that launched Dr. Screen’s career in writing, and as a result, he has published three textbooks and three novels. Dr. Screen returned to his alma mater, Hampton Institute and founded the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders, which he has shared since 1963. During this period of time the department also initiated a master's degree program, and this program has never failed to meet the standards for ASHA (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association) accreditation. A major factor in Dr. Screen's tenure at Hampton has been his role as Head Tennis Coach since 1970. During this time at Hampton, he has won 37 Championships in 35 years. Since moving to Division 1 in the MEAC Conference he has won 13 Championships in 11 years (8 Men and 5 Women). Dr. Screen is the only African American Tennis Coach to have won a National Championship in Tennis, and he did this twice, in 1976 and 1989 when Hampton was still in Division II of the NCAA. As of this writing (Summer 2006), Dr. Screen has amassed 982 wins. He is the 3rd coach in tennis history to reach the mark of 1,000 victories. Dr. Screen is the only African American Coach to be recipient of the NCAA National Coach of the Year (1985). He has also won 23 Conference Coach of the year Awards, in both the CIAA and MEAC.