The march on Washington, 1963.

Abstract

HUNDREDS OF DOCTORS, dentists, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals formed the medical contingent of the August 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Many were inspired by this historic civil rights experience—particularly by the now famous “I have a dream” speech by the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr—to join demonstrations and other efforts to eliminate racism in the health field, first in the US South and then throughout the nation. This photograph was taken for the American Journal of Nursing and is in the Medical Committee for Human Rights Archive of the US Health Activism History Collection of the Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health, Philadelphia, Pa. The medical contingent of the March on Washington was organized by the newly founded Medical Committee for Civil Rights (which later evolved into the Medical Committee for Human Rights) and was sponsored by the National Medical Association, the National Dental Association, the Physicians Forum, the American Nurses Association, and the National Association of Social Workers, as well as by the 6 civil rights organizations that called the march. The chairman of the Medical Committee for Civil Rights was John (Mike) L. S. Holloman, Jr, MD, a general practitioner in Harlem and a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Medical Association; Paul B. Cornely, MD, professor of preventive medicine at Howard University Medical School, was the Washington coordinator for the medical contingent of the march. Dr Cornely was elected the first African American president of the American Public Health Association in 1968.