Segregation and access to medical care

In the chronology

Events in this storyline, in date order. See these 16 dated events in the chronology →

1. 1901 Lincoln Hospital opens in Durham for Black patients Dr. Aaron Moore and John Merrick won Duke family funding for a separate hospital where Black physicians and nurses treated Black patients, after Watts Hospital had excluded them. It opened in 1901 as a 50-bed frame building. People: Benjamin N. (Benjamin Newton) DukeOpen Durham: Lincoln Hospital (1901-1924)
2. January 1, 1924 Community Club hires a nurse to serve Chapel Hill's Black community The health department of the Chapel Hill Community Club engaged a Black nurse, known as Nurse Compton and formerly of Lincoln Hospital, who began on January 1, 1924, visiting homes, examining children at the Black schools and organizing clean-up campaigns. By May 1926 the town had taken over part of her salary and she worked under Health Officer Nathan.The Chapel Hill Weekly, February 7, 1924, p. 1 (The Colored Nurse Is Doing Valuable Work Among Her People) · Also: Chapel Hill Weekly, December 1, 1939, p. 4
3. October 1930 Chapel Hill charity circle reports taking a patient to Lincoln Hospital in Durham The Burden Bearers' Circle of the King's Daughters and Sons of Chapel Hill reported that it had taken a man to Lincoln Hospital in Durham for an operation and driven him back weekly for two months of treatment. The circle also made gowns for the hospital.The Chapel Hill Weekly, October 10, 1930, p. 6, Burden Bearers' report
4. 1934 Girls from the Efland Home receive free care at Durham's Lincoln Hospital In 1934 the Efland Home's residents were treated without charge at Lincoln Hospital, the Black hospital in Durham, where Dr. Stanford Lee Warren, husband of home trustee Julia Warren, had been a founding trustee.NC State Historic Preservation Office: North Carolina Industrial Home for Colored Girls (Efland Home), National Register nomination (OR2815), p. 18
5. by March 6, 1936 Orange County's Black teachers raise a fund for medical care of Black schoolchildren The glee club formed by the county's 41 Black teachers had raised about $200 by concerts, and with gifts from parent-teacher associations the fund for medical and dental care of the county's 1,875 Black pupils had reached nearly $500. The teachers gave a further benefit concert in Memorial Hall on Sunday evening, March 8, 1936, sponsored by the Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A., with a section of the hall reserved for Black listeners.The Chapel Hill Weekly, March 6, 1936, p. 1
6. April 1944 Hillsborough well-baby clinics are held separately for Black and white babies The Junior Service League and the district health department held two well-baby clinics each month in Hillsborough, one for Black babies and one for white babies, focused on preventive care.The News of Orange County (Hillsborough), April 6, 1944, p. 2
7. April 24, 1951 UNC admits Edward O. Diggs, its first Black medical student UNC mailed Edward O. Diggs of Winston-Salem, a pre-medical student at A&T College in Greensboro, his letter of admission to the School of Medicine under the trustees' April 4, 1951 policy. He enrolled in the fall of 1951. People: W. Reece Berryhill, Gordon Gray, R. B. HouseThe Daily Tar Heel: A&T Student Becomes First To Enter UNC, April 25, 1951
8. September 1951 State says Chapel Hill's new tuberculosis hospital will take Black and white patients A State Medical Care Commission spokesman said the $1,100,000 tuberculosis hospital under construction at Chapel Hill would treat Black and white patients. He noted that federal rules barred discrimination in federally aided hospitals but still allowed patients to be segregated.The Daily Tar Heel: Coloring In TB Hospital, September 23, 1951
9. 1952 UNC's new dental school building opens with separate facilities for Black and white patients The School of Dentistry's new building opened with what a university memo called separate, complete facilities for white and Black patients. Publicity photographs showed separate waiting rooms for each race.UNC Libraries, For the Record: Segregated Spaces at the UNC School of Dentistry, 1953
10. 1955 Edward O. Diggs becomes UNC's first Black medical graduate Edward O. Diggs graduated from the UNC School of Medicine in 1955, the first African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine degree from the university. James Slade, the school's second Black student, had enrolled in 1953.The Carolina Story: First Black Graduate Students
11. June 1962 Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee asks for a Black nurse on the district health staff At a Chapel Hill Human Relations Committee meeting, Esther Atwater said the district health department needed a Black nurse on its staff. Chairman Dr. William Joyner said he would take the request to District Health Officer Dr. O. D. Garvin. People: O. David GarvinThe Chapel Hill Weekly: Aldermen Asked To Take Action, June 28, 1962
12. April 1963 NAACP chapter pickets North Carolina Memorial Hospital over segregated rooms and wards The UNC chapter of the NAACP organized a picket in April 1963 to protest that private rooms and certain wards for Black patients at the hospital were still segregated, although outpatient clinics, recovery rooms, pediatrics and the cafeteria had been integrated. Hospital officials opposed the demonstration.The Daily Tar Heel, April 6, 1963, p. 1