Evelyn Whitlock, a Black student who had attended Washington University, begins work as a medical records librarian at Jewish Hospital. Eventually, she becomes director of the medical records department, where she supervises 18 people, takes charge of all patient records, and installs computer systems to better process reports. “The day for medical records workers to […]
James Whittico, MD, is the first Black fellow in surgery. The first Black male physicians join the School of Medicine faculty: J. Owen Blache, MD, in pathology, George A. Gaikins, MD, in surgery and Edward B. Williams, MD, in internal medicine. Images: James Whittico, MD | J. Owen Blache, MD
Ernest St. John Simms, a Black researcher, joins the medical school’s research staff, later contributing to the Nobel-Prize-winning research of Arthur Kornberg. Simms is named a research assistant professor in 1968, becoming the first Black person to hold a full-time academic appointment at the school, and is named an associate professor in 1971. Image: Ernest […]
Helen E. Nash, MD, becomes the first Black woman to join the School of Medicine faculty and the first Black attending physician at Children’s Hospital, where she serves for more than 40 years. A trainee of Homer G. Phillips Hospital, she becomes a hugely impactful physician and mentor and establishes scholarships for students interested in […]
Velma Murphy Jones, a graduate of Homer G. Phillips School of Nursing, begins a decades-long career at Barnes Hospital, where she serves as the first Black nurse in charge of a nursing division. Image: Velma Murphy Jones, right, in the Barnes Hospital Bulletin, February 1976
The U.S. Supreme Court decides Shelley v. Kraemer, which originated in St. Louis. The court rules that enforcing racially restrictive covenants is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Department of Ophthalmology at Washington University discovers it has inadvertently admitted a Black physician, James W. Nofles, MD, to its three-week postgraduate course. The School of Medicine decides to declare that the medical school is desegregated. Image: James W. Nofles, MD
The report “Higher Education for American Democracy,” commissioned by President Harry S. Truman, recommends that “federal appropriations [should] be given only to those schools willing to comply” with desegregation. Washington University dissents, saying that the university “disagreed with any recommendation as to the immediate abandonment of segregation” and that dismantling of inequality must be made […]
A snack bar opens in the basement of the McMillan Building. It was “especially for Black employees,” said neurologist William Landau, MD, in an oral history. “It was actually called the ‘Chocolate Shop,’ double entendre intended.” Image: Blueprint of McMillan Hospital dining areas, 1929
A polio epidemic sweeps through St. Louis, flooding Children’s Hospital with patients. Alexis Hartmann, MD, repurposes the Blacks-only Butler Ward to serve the polio patients and relocates the Butler Ward patients throughout the hospital. Later that year, the Children’s Hospital board of managers votes to permanently desegregate the hospital.