In 2016, Charles Barkley marked Black History Month with a daily spotlight on local African-American heroes. Many of them didn’t make it into the history books or even the newspapers of their time. But their stories are inspiring and worth knowing. Here’s another look.
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Nathan Francis Mossell
Physician
Nathan Francis Mossell
Physician
(July 27, 1856 – October 27, 1946)
Nathan Francis Mossell was a pioneer physician who established the first black private hospital in Philadelphia, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Hospital and Training School, that both treated African Americans and trained black nurses and doctors.
Uncle to All-Star Sadie Mossell Alexander, he was the first African American to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania medical school, and the first to join the Philadelphia County Medical Society.
Mossell was also an activist, founding the Philadelphia chapter of the NAACP, and joining W.E.B. DuBois’ Niagara Movement.
Mossell left his papers to Penn, including his autobiography in which he writes, “It is plain therefore, that prior to the Civil War, the so-called free colored people had few, if any, rights that the white man felt bound to respect. This mental attitude on his part, so hampered the colored people’s ideas of themselves that it still shrouds their efforts to attain a more inclusive legal franchise for themselves.”
EDUCATION:
- Lincoln University B.A., 1879
- University of Pennsylvania M.D., 1882
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- First African American to earn a medical degree from Penn
- First African American to join the Philadelphia Medical Society
- Founded first private black hospital in Philadelphia that would not only treat African Americans but also train and teach black nurses and doctors
- Fought for the desegregation of Girard College
FINAL WORD: In Mossell’s autobiography, he writes, “One may wonder how a physician can find so much time to champion the cause of his people. I have been no less spared from the indignities of segregation and discrimination than the non-professional colored person. In waging a fight to help free others from the infringements of Jim Crowism, I also help free myself.”
Photo Credit: Wikipedia/University of Pennsylvania, University Archives and Records Center