First black doctor who taught at University remembered, honored

News Author of The Biology of the Negro challenged the foundation of racism in the 1940s.

Posted Feb 24, 2015 by Lorentz Hansen

Dr. Julian H. Lewis, the first black doctor to teach at the University of Chicago and author of The Biology of the Negro, a book which scientifically disproved the idea of a superior race, was remembered in a talk on February 21 at the Logan Center as part of the Integrating the Life of the Mind exhibit in celebration of Black History Month.

The event featured a panel that consisted of independent scholar Robert Branch II; University of Kansas School of Medicine Chair of History and Philosophy of Medicine Dr. Christopher Crenner; and Founder, Director, and Curator of the Robbins Historical Society and Museum Tyrone Haymore. It was co-sponsored by the Civic Knowledge Project, the Office of Campus and Student Life, Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and the University of Chicago Association of Black Alumni.

Bart Schultz, executive director of the Civic Knowledge Project and moderator of the event, described the importance of this and other events in the exhibit call[ing] attention to important history, still too often neglected. The idea of neglected history resonated throughout the course of the talk. [The panelists] are the ones who pressed the question: Why isnt the University of Chicago doing more to recognize the significance of [Lewis]? Schultz said.

Lewis became the first African American to serve on the faculty at the University in 1917. This was one of numerous achievements and firsts that Lewis achieved, as Branch noted throughout his presentation of his nine years research on Lewis. Prior to Branchs research, Lewiss personal life and even professional achievements remained largely unknown and unpublicized. That, in the words of Haymore, is what made this event truly historic.

Branch asked the audience members to stand up if they hadnt heard of Lewis before the event. In response, the majority of the crowd full of University and community members stood.

Branch said he began his research so that Dr. Lewis could get his proper place in history. In addition to being the first African American to serve on UChicago faculty, Lewis was also the first African American in recorded American history to hold two medical degrees.

No one had ever done what Dr. Lewis did, in terms of using datato make a case that, in terms of genotype-the biological and chemical properties[t]here was no real difference that would denote superiorityonly differences that would denote differences in diseases, [which, at the time it was published] challenged a lot of the status quo, Branch said about Lewiss book The Biology of the Negro.

As Crenner said, Lewis used his work to make arguments against some of the racial prejudices of his time, and his work was his testimony to the fact that normal must also mean black, both in medicine and in society.

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First black doctor who taught at University remembered, honored