Being Black at Hopkins Medicine, circa 1974
Allison Seyler at Hopkins Retrospective publishes a revealing interview with James Davis, M.D.
I had felt that the institution had let me down because they really—because they had exposed me to a tremendous amount of racism, not only me but to a lot of patients—I saw a lot of disrespect there. — James Davis, M.D.
The historical archive is neither fixed nor stagnant. Over at Hopkins Retrospective, archivist, public historian and Program Manager Allison Seyler is leading efforts to ensure the university archive permits us to better understand the long story of how racism shaped Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medicine.
Ms. Seyler recently published an extensive oral history conducted with Dr. James Davis, a 1974 graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her introduction explains that Dr. Davis specializes in infectious diseases and internal medicine and spent most of his career as a physician in Washington, D.C., before retiring after 41 years. As a student, Dr. Davis transferred to Johns Hopkins as part of its 2-5 program which allowed him to also spend time on the undergraduate campus before attending medical school. In his interview, Dr. Davis recalls “the small total number of Black medical students at Hopkins - 13 - and he mentions the difficulties they faced because of professors and instructors who obstructed their paths.” His perspective permits us to understand how racism ran through the experience of Black medical students and their Black patients.
Our collective memory is changing through the recovery of Dr. Davis’s experience during what were critical years for Black students at Johns Hopkins. In just 2021, Dr. Davis was inducted into the Indispensable Role of Blacks at Hopkins Exhibit as a trailblazing physician engaged in “healing with dignity, inspiring others.” Now his full story is part of the Hopkins Retrospective oral history collection. (Dive in there for many more powerful first-person accounts of being Black at Hopkins.)
Take time with Dr. Davis’s important recounting of his years at Johns Hopkins, what brought him to Hopkins, and the many places he went after graduation in 1974. His memories can generate our own reflections on where we come from and stimulate essential thinking about where we aim to go. Thank you to Dr. Davis and to Allison Seyler and Hopkins Retrospective for all they do to inspire our work at Hard Histories.
Want to learn more? Mark your calendar for May 5-6, 2022, when the conference “Reckoning with Race and Racism in Academic Medicine” will convene under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Department of the History of Medicine, School of Medicine, Center for Africana Studies, and Program in Racism, Immigration, and Citizenship.
— MSJ