James McCune Smith | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | April 18, 1813 |
| Died | November 17, 1865 (aged 52) Long Island, New York |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | African Free School Glasgow University(M.D.) |
| Spouse | Malvina Barnet |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Internal medicine |
| Institutions | Colored Orphan Asylum Wilberforce College |
James McCune Smith (April 18, 1813 – November 17, 1865) was an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist and author. He was the first African American to earn a medical degree. His M.D. was awarded by the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. After his return to the United States, he also became the first African American to run a pharmacy in the nation.
In addition to practicing as a physician for nearly 20 years at the Colored Orphan Asylum in Manhattan, Smith was a public intellectual: he contributed articles to medical journals, participated in learned societies, and wrote numerous essays and articles drawing from his medical and statistical training. He used his training in medicine and statistics to refute common misconceptions about race, intelligence, medicine, and society in general. He was invited as a founding member of the New York Statistics Society in 1852, which promoted a then new science. Later he was elected as a member in 1854 of the recently founded American Geographic Society. He was never admitted to the American Medical Association or local medical associations,[1] very likely as a result of the systemic racism that Smith confronted throughout his medical career.[1]
He has been most well known for his leadership as an abolitionist: a member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, with Frederick Douglass he helped start the National Council of Colored People in 1853, the first permanent national organization for blacks. Douglass called Smith "the single most important influence on his life."[2] Smith was one of the Committee of Thirteen, who organized in 1850 in Manhattan to resist the newly passed Fugitive Slave Law by aiding refugee slaves through the Underground Railroad. Other leading abolitionist activists were among his friends and colleagues. From the 1840s, Smith lectured on race and abolitionism and wrote numerous articles to refute racist ideas about black capacities.
Both Smith and his wife were of mixed African and European descent. As he became economically successful, Smith built a house in a mostly white neighborhood; in the 1860 census he and his family were classified as white, along with their neighbors. (In the census of 1850, while living in a predominately African-American neighborhood, they had been classified as mulatto.) Smith served for nearly 20 years as the physician at the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York. After it was burned down in July 1863 by a mob in draft riots in Manhattan, in which nearly 100 blacks were killed, Smith moved his family and practice to Brooklyn for their safety. Many other blacks left Manhattan for Brooklyn at the same time. The parents stressed education for their children. In the 1870 census, his widow and children continued to be classified as white.
- ^ a b Morgan, Thomas M (July 2003). "The education and medical practice of Dr. James McCune Smith (1813-1865), first black American to hold a medical degree". Journal of the National Medical Association. 95 (7): 603–14. PMC 2594637. PMID 12911258. Note: Glasgow University's matriculation album for 1832 lists Smith as "the first natural son of Samuel, merchant, New York" (translated from Latin)
- ^ Morgan (2006), p. 612