Often times, when we talked about African American great achievers, sport figures would come to mind. We know their names, their scores, their knock-out bouts, their touch downs. We can even mention some other names of more vocal political figures and their memorable speeches. There is another group of people whose achievements are quieter but if not more important in the service of mankind. They are the quiet African American medical pioneers and here is just a handful among many.

Dr. Charles Richard Drew
1905-1950

Dr. Charles Drew was a medical doctor, a surgeon, and above all, the inventor of the blood bank. Despite the hardship of racial discrimination at that time, Dr. Drew managed to achieve a high level of education: a BA from Amherst in 1926, MD and Master of Surgery from McGill University in Montreal 1933, and a Doctor of Science in Medicine from Columbia University in 1940, and to become a well-respected surgeon, professor, and the first Director Of the Red Cross Blood Bank.

During his residency at Columbia University's Presbyterian Hospital, Dr. Drew developed a technique for the long-term preservation of blood plasma by separating the plasma (the liquid part of blood) from the whole blood (containing the red blood cells) and then refrigerated the two separately, then combining them up to a week later for transfusion.

He also determined that while each person has a certain type of blood (A, B, AB, or O) and is therefore prevented from receiving a full blood transfusion from someone with a different blood type, everyone has the same type of plasma. Thus in certain cases it was possible to give a plasma transfusion which could be administered from anyone to anyone, regardless of blood types. He steadfastly ignored the racial background of donors and transfusion receivers saving thousands of lives, especially during WW II.

During his lifetime Charles Drew was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1944 for his work on blood plasma. He was also the first black to be appointed an examiner by the American Board of Surgery. Drew was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the National Medical Association in 1950. A United States postage stamp was issued in his honor in 1981.

Dr. Susan McKinney Steward
1847 - 1918

Born Susan Maria Smith in March of 1847, Dr. Steward became the first African American female doctor in New York State, and the third in the United States.

In 1867, when she was 20 years old, Susan entered the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women in New York City, and graduated on March 23, 1870.

After graduation, she opened her first office in her Brooklyn home and then another in Manhattan. She treated blacks and whites, the poor and the rich. In 1893, as a window, she married Reverend Theophilus Gould Steward. Reverend Steward was the chaplain of the 25th U.S. Colored Infantry, known as Buffalo Soldiers. Susan traveled to various forts where she treated many African American soldiers.

Dr. McKinney gave lectures to the public about health, nutrition and medicine. She often spoke about women’s rights and the progress of Black women. In 1881, she founded the Memorial Hospital for Women and Children. She cared for senior citizens at the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People. This dedicated physician died at the age of 71on March 7, 1918. The Susan Smith McKinney Junior High School, in Brooklyn, New York, was named in her honor on September 25, 1974. Later, the Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society was founded by a group of African American women doctors.

Dr. William Augustus Hinton
1883-1959

Dr. William Augustus Hinton was an internationally renowned researcher and the first black doctor to teach at Harvard. He was born on December 15, 1883 in Chicago, a son of former slaves from Kansas. He studied at the University of Kansas, finishing the premedical program in just two years. Hinton received a bachelor's degree at Harvard in 1905. Hinton worked in a law office, and then taught science at Waldo University in Tennessee before pursuing a career in medicine.

In 1909, Hinton was offered a scholarship reserved for African American students, but instead of accepting it, he chose to compete for a scholarship open to all students, the Wigglesworth scholarship. He won the scholarship two years in a row. Hinton finished the Harvard medical program in just three years. He received his M.D. in 1912.

After graduating, Hinton began work at the Wassermann Laboratory at Harvard, and by 1915 become director of the lab which was the official lab for the Massachusetts State Department of Public Health. In 1916, he also created a program to train women as lab technicians.

In 1927, he developed a test, now known as the Hinton test, for diagnosing syphilis. It was easier, less expensive, and more accurate than previous methods, and was adopted as the standard procedure for diagnosing syphilis. Later, Hinton helped to develop another diagnostic test known as the Davies-Hinton test.

As a professor, Hinton taught preventative medicine and hygiene at Harvard from 1923, for 27 years. His book on syphilis, a serious public health threat, became widely acclaimed. Hinton noted the role of socioeconomics in health and called syphilis "a disease of the underprivileged."

Hinton was a special consultant to the U.S. Public Health Service and taught at Tufts University and Simmons College. Despite losing a leg in a car accident in 1940, he continued to teach at Harvard until 1950, and kept working at the Wassermann laboratory until 1953. Hinton died in 1959 in Massachusetts at the age of 75.

Dr. James McCune Smith
1813-1865

James McCune Smith was the first African American to earn a medical degree and practice medicine in the United States. He was also the first to own and operate a pharmacy, in New York City. Smith was born on April 18, 1813 in New York City to former slaves, as all African Americans were back then. Smith began his education at the African Free School in New York City, but soon found he could go no further in U.S. education due to racial discrimination.

So Smith crossed the Atlantic and studied instead at the University of Glasgow, in Scotland. He received a bachelor's degree in 1835, a master's degree in 1836, and his medical degree in 1837.
When he returned to the United States, Smith received a hero's welcome from New York's black community. He gave a speech at the annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, where he described abolitionist activities in Europe.

He began a medical practice in New York and opened a pharmacy on West Broadway, the first African American owned and operated pharmacy in the United States.

Dr. Smith practiced medicine for 25 years, primarily at the Free Negro Orphan Asylum. He frequently gave speeches against slavery, and wrote essays for antislavery publications, including the Emancipator and the Liberator. Smith used science and his knowledge of medicine to refute false claims of slavery advocates. In one essay, he marshaled statistics against a minister's claim that slaves in the South were more content than free blacks in the North. In another, he applied his medical knowledge to counter assertions about black health and insanity.

In 1863, Smith was appointed professor of anthropology at Wilberforce University, in Ohio. He died two years later in New York, survived by his wife and five children.

Mary Eliza Mahoney
1845-1926

Mary Eliza Mahoney was the first black professional nurse in America, and an active organizer among African American nurses. She was born in Boston, on May 7, 1845. At the age of 18, she decided to pursue a career in nursing, working at the progressive New England Hospital for Women and Children. At age 33, she was accepted in the nursing school, the first professional nursing program in the country. Mahoney was one of just four who graduated the next year out of the 42 students.

After graduation, Mahoney registered for work as a private-duty nurse. Her calm and efficient professionalism helped raise the status of all nurses. At a time when nurses were often assigned domestic chores as well as nursing duties, she refused to take her meals with household staff. Mahoney received requests from patients as far away as New Jersey, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.

Mahoney was one of the first black members of the American Nurses Association (A.N.A.). When that organization proved slow to admit black nurses, Mahoney supported the establishment of the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses (N.A.C.G.N.) Mahoney recognized the inequalities in nursing education and called for a demonstration at the New England Hospital to have more African American students admitted. For over a decade after that, Mahoney helped recruit nurses to joint the organization. In 1911 she took the helm at the Howard Orphan Asylum in New York, and served there for over a year.

Mahoney was also a strong supporter of the women the right to vote movement. She was among the first women in Boston to register to vote in 1920, at the age of 76. She died in 1926. In 1936, the N.A.C.G.N. established an award in her honor (later continued by the A.N.A.) to raise the status of black nurses. She was inducted into the A.N.A.'s Hall of Fame in 1976.

Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
1833 -

Dr. .Crumpler was born in 1833 and raised by an aunt in Pennsylvania who became her inspiration. She first worked as a nurse in Massachusetts, where her dedication gained her notice from her supervisors. With their recommendations, she entered the New England Female Medical College in Boston (which later merged with Boston University's medical school). Crumpler received a Doctress of Medicine degree in 1864, the first African American woman to earn a medical degree.

Dr. Crumpler started a practice as a general practitioner serving many Boston families. When the Civil War ended the following year, she relocated her medical practice to Richmond, Virginia, to care for newly freed slaves in the South. Her reputation for excellent care and hard work spread quickly. She worked in Richmond's black community for many years before returning to Boston with her husband, Dr. Arthur Crumpler.

Back in Boston, Crumpler established a practice dedicated to serving women and children, especially through nutrition and preventative medicine. At that time she also began reviewing her journals and research. Hoping to educate the public about health, she wrote a two-volume work, A Book of Medical Discourses, published by Keating & Company, about her experience in 1883. It offered women a reference on how to provide medical care for themselves and their children.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams
1856 - 1931
 

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was born on January 18, 1856 in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. Daniel's father, a barber, died early. Daniel was sent to be apprentice to a shoemaker in Baltimore but ran away to join his mother. At one point, he even opened his own barber shop. He began working as an apprentice to Dr. Henry Palmer for two years and in 1880 entered what is now known as Northwestern University Medical School. After graduation from Northwestern in 1883, he opened his own medical office in Chicago, Illinois.

He was appointed as a surgeon on the staff of the South Side Dispensary and then a clinical instructor in anatomy at Northwestern. In 1889 he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health and one year later set for to create an interracial hospital. On January 23, 1891 Daniel Hale Williams established the Provident Hospital and Training School Association. The school also served to train Black nurses and utilized doctors of all races.

On July 9, 1893, a young Black stabbing victim was transported to Provident Hospital with a great deal of blood loss and having gone into shock.. Williams made the decision to operate and opened the man's chest. That was the first open heart surgery. Fifty one days later, the patient was completely recovered and went on to live for another fifty years. His procedures became standards for future internal surgeries.

In February 1894, Daniel Hale Williams was appointed as Chief Surgeon at the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, D.C. and reorganized the hospital with an astounding increase in efficiency as well as a decrease in patient deaths. The couple soon moved to Chicago after Daniel resigned from the Freedmen's hospital. He resumed his position as Chief Surgeon at Provident Hospital as well as for nearby Mercy Hospital and St. Luke's Hospital, an exclusive hospital for wealthy White patients.

When the American Medical Association refused to accept Black members, Williams helped to set up and served as Vice-President of the National Medical Association. In 1912, Williams was appointed associate attending surgeon at St. Luke's and worked there until his retirement from the practice of medicine. He received numerous honors and awards. He received honorary degrees from Howard and Wilberforce Universities, was named a charter member of the American College of Surgeons and was a member of the Chicago Surgical Society.
Williams died on August 4, 1931, having set standards and examples for surgeons, both Black and White, for years to come.