Black History Month 2023

This Black History Month, I’m spotlighting Black individuals who are often overlooked but played a significant role in the welfare of America.

In 1826 a family of Black slaves found themselves in an unusual position—a White man needed their help. His wagon had slipped off the road and gotten mired in a swamp. He was destitute.

The family of slaves had every reason to mistrust this stranger. Even to hate him. After all, members of his race had put them in chains. Slave catchers went to great lengths to recapture runaways. Even legally freed slaves often found themselves as slaves if they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But, against all logic, this family decided to resist fear and hatred. Instead of scorning the Irishman, they gave him shelter, food, and a place to sleep. And that day, Samuel Meharry made a promise.

” I have no money, but when I can, I shall do something for your race.”

Samuel Meharry, 1826

Meharry kept his word. Fifty years later, he and his four brothers donated $30,000 (approximately $800,000 in 2023 dollars) and land to open a medical school in Nashville, TN. Meharry Medical College’s first president was a former Union soldier from New Hampshire, Mr. George Hubbard.

While still completing his own medical degree, Hubbard opened the school with two White instructors and less than a dozen students just eleven years after the Civil War.

It might not have seemed like much but it was a start.

A good deed repaid

Meharry Medical College was primarily organized for Black students from the southeastern states. Its mission? To educate African Americans to serve the underserved. The college would grow to become one of the few medical institutions offering training to Black students. By 1923, Meharry earned an “A” rating from the American Medical Association.

According to the US Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, until 1969, more African American students would enroll in Meharry and Howard—another traditional school of medicine—than in the other 99 American medical schools combined. Today, thousands of healthcare professionals have passed through Meharry’s doors.

Fighting for Democracy

Some of those healthcare practitioners were the Flight Surgeons who supported the Tuskegee Airmen during World War 2. Intelligent, well-educated, and committed to their cause, these Black doctors served in the Mediterranean and European theatres of war and often came under direct attack by the enemy.

In reflecting on the dramatic achievements by Black doctors during the Second World War, I couldn’t help but draw a direct line between the men and women who medically supported the famed Tuskegee pilots—who had a significant impact on the WW2 Allied victory— and a random act of kindness that happened next to a swampy road 120 years earlier.

What if…?

What if that family of slaves had driven away a man who needed help? Would there have been sufficient training for Black medical students? It might seem grandiose, but I would argue that this family’s single action altered the course of Black history in America.

Think about it: in the 1940s, many White doctors were unwilling to share medical facilities with Blacks. Frankly, Ramitelli Air Field was built in part to keep Black pilots separate from Whites.

With that mindset, would wounded Black fighter pilots and soldiers fighting for America have received needed medical care had it not for the Black Flight Surgeons turned out by Meharry and Howard medical schools?

If not, what impact would not having a viable force of ace pilots like the Tuskegee Airmen have had on America’s performance in WW2?

While these questions can’t be definitively answered, one thing is certain.

Acts of kindness always bring their own reward. Especially those that are the most difficult to do.

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