african american doctors at harlem hospital
One hundred years ago today … The New York Age was reporting that Harlem Hospital had added a second Black doctor, Douglas B. Johnson, to its staff. Johnson joined Louis T. Wright, who had been the first African American to desegregate a hospital staff in New York City.
Wright had been appointed in 1919, after a 6-year fight for the addition of Black doctors at Harlem Hospital. (“New York Doctors Win Victory,” The Dallas Express 1 November 1919, p.5) (the actual date of appointment seems in dispute: David Warmflash has it as January 1, 1920.)
Louis T Wright, undated. Pinted in “Louis Tompkins Wright: Surgeon, Scientist, Civil Rights Activist.”
Wright, like Johnson, had served as a military surgeon during World War I. In addition to being an innovator in bacteriology and hospital practice, Wright was a lifelong civil rights activist, an N.A.A.C.P. officer ,and a contributor to The Crisis (about which we have posted repeatedly). According to P. Preston Reynolds, he “devoted his life to the racial integration of health care in order to provide full access of opportunity to Black patients, physicians,and nurses.”
A 1912 postcard. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection. New York Public Library.
Harlem Hospital opened in 1887 on East 120th Street, moved in 1907 to Lenox Avenue, between 136 and 137 Streets, and finally into expanded facilities at its present site on between 135 and 136 Streets, Malcolm X Boulevard, in 1969.
References/Further reading:
P. Preston Reynolds, “Louis T. Wright and the NAACP: Pioneers in Hospital Racial Integration.” American Journal of Public Health 90.6, June 2000. 883-896.
Wright, Louis T. Louis T Wright Papers. Howard University,
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, SEPTEMBER 4, 2020.
TAGS: civil rights, African American History, black history, racism, Harlem Renaissance, medicine, hospitals, doctors, hiring, labor