The History of Medicine Part 6: The African American Experience

Excluded from the AMA and from orthodox medicine, African American doctors had to find their own way in the late 1800's.  Virtually no African American doctors existed in the early century, but that changed in the Civil War, especially with the advent of Howard University and then a sprinkling of other medical schools that trained black doctors.  How the African American medical community grew and prospered by essentially engineering an alternate medical landscape is something often overlooked by medical historians, and yet is crucial to understand white orthodoxy, the medical racial script, and the posturing of the AMA.  Ironically, most African American doctors upheld the most foundational tenants of orthodoxy and worked well with white doctors, but were shunned by organized medicine, medical schools, and remained excluded from most medical institutions.