ABSTRACT
This chapter develops an analysis of the political and economic contexts of the medical education of black physicians in the United States. It focuses on different initiatives to develop programs for African American medical education in the state of Tennessee between 1876 and 1900. The exclusion of African Americans from medical education and practice in the context of a steadily increasing population of blacks in the United States helped to stimulate the need for more black physicians. In addition to the Howard University School of Medicine and Meharry Medical College, the chapter describes some new programs of medical education for African Americans that developed in the United States between 1880 and 1900. Along with the efforts by black men and women and some generous philanthropists to open the doors to medical education, there were many successful attempts to develop and operate their own hospitals.
