Johns Hopkins University - History - Civil Rights - African-Americans

African-Americans

Hopkins was a prominent abolitionist who supported Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. After his death, reports said his conviction was a decisive factor in enrolling Hopkins' first African-American student, Kelly Miller, a graduate student in physics, astronomy and mathematics, and in admitting Harvard-trained physician Whitfield Winsey and two other African-American physicians to Maryland's Medical and Chirurgical Society MedChi. These physicians could attend meetings only because they were held on campus. As the memory of Hopkins faded and trustees like King died, Hopkins became like other Baltimore institutions, particularly in terms of race. The Johns Hopkins University chronology stated that on March 15, 1892, an administrator hired by Gilman recommended that the hospital should have a "…separate ward for colored patients." Johns Hopkins Hospital subsequently became segregated. Johns Hopkins' "separate but equal" stance was evident when it came to these segregated wards: "Special care will be taken to see that the heating and ventilation apparatus is as perfect as possible. A sun balcony will be erected on each floor on the east side, for convalescents, while a sun bay-window will be constructed at the south end of the south wing. On each floor there will be a dining room, kitchen, lavatory and bath-rooms...The building will be fireproof throughout."

As segregation grew within Johns Hopkins institutions, it affected pay, hiring and promotions. Staff in segregated wards and those employed in the lower rungs of the service industries had the longest history within the Johns Hopkins Institutions. Johns Hopkins' students, physicians, administrators and staff of African descent had a much shorter history within these institutions. The first black undergraduate was Frederick Scott who entered the school in 1945. In 1967 the first black students earned graduate degrees. Dr. James Nabwangu a British-trained Kenyan, was the first black graduate of the medical school. A second was earned by Robert Gamble.

The first African-American instructor was laboratory supervisor Vivien Thomas, who also invented and developed research instruments, served as an assistant in surgery to surgeon Alfred Blalock and worked closely with Blalock and Helen Taussig in developing and conducting the first successful blue baby operation. Black students and professionals were rare at Johns Hopkins Institutions and Maryland's state medical societies until after the 1940s. Diversity increased only in the 1960s and 1970s. African-Americans and women were labeled "The Uninvited" in the second major history of the university.