Duke University Med Ctr History Retrospective: Integrating Medicine

[(David P.)]

Duke University Med Ctr History Retrospective: Integrating Medicine
by Matt Shangler, Asst Archivist, Med Ctr Archives, Feb 2013

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first African-American
students admitted to Duke. In the fall of 1963, the first 5 African-
American undergrads enrolled, effectively integrating the school.
But what about the School of Medicine?

Like most hospitals and institutions in the south before 1960,
Duke Hospital and School of Medicine had a policy of racial segregation.
The hospital wards and employee facilities were segregated and African
Americans were not admitted to the School of Medicine. While faculty
tried to change the policies in the 1950s, it was difficult to do so
when internal and external social pressures were calling for continued
segregation. However, by the turn of the 60s, the racial policies at
Duke began to change with pressure from multiple sides.

In Nov 1960, Barnes Woodhall, newly appointed Dean of the School of
Medicine, wrote a memo calling for the integration of the School of Medicine:

“It is my opinion that continuation of the existing segregation policy
of the University will seriously impair the ability of the Medical Center
to further its traditional duty of ‘caring for the sick’ and may eventually
destroy its credo of excellence…I request that the University admit properly
qualified members of the colored race to its graduate and professional schools.”

In April 1961, the board of trustees voted to integrate all graduate and
professional schools. In August, the consulting firm of Booz, Allen, and
Hamilton issued their report on Duke Hospital which concluded that Duke
Hospital not only needed new facilities, but also private rooms for African-
American patients. But Duke didn’t wait for the report to come out before
changing hospital policies. By August, Duke Hospital had integrated all of
its waiting rooms and employee locker rooms, and began hiring hospital
personnel without regard to race, religion, or national origin.

With the exception of the VA Hospital, Duke was one of the first medical
institutions in North Carolina to desegregate. Dr. Ed Halperin noted in
his article, “Desegregation of Hospitals and Medical Societies in North
Carolina,” that at Duke, “The basic science faculty, with a large portion
of northerners, pressed for integration.” Despite a failed attempt in 1956
to desegregate the wards, Duke integrated its hospital and medical school
earlier than other institutions in North Carolina and with far less resistance
from its faculty, staff and students. By comparison, for example, segregation
was first challenged at Cone Hospital in Greensboro in 1961, and later by
9 black physicians in 1962. However, the suit filed against Cone Hospital
dragged on in the courts until a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in favor
of the black physicians was made final when the Supreme Court declined to hear
the case in 1964.

While not challenged in the courts, segregation at Duke was contested among
its faculty and staff in various ways. In 1959, Dr. William S. Lynn, Jr.,
a southerner, decided to erase the ‘whites only’ wording off the bathroom
doors in the Bell Building in order to provide more bathroom facilities for
the black staff. Dr. Joseph Beard, who largely funded the building’s
construction, became furious and ordered the words be repainted. Lynn kept
removing the words as quickly as Beard could have them repainted. None of the
faculty would identify Lynn as the perpetrator. This act of defiance continued
into 1961 and did not cease until Beard eventually gave up the fight.

https://mclibrary.duke.edu/about/news/newsletter-2013-02-01

https://www.alphaomegaalpha.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2007-2-Halperin.pdf