Intersectional Tensions in the Desegregation of Harlem Hospital, 1919–35

Rather than a concerted effort to promote racial equality, the desegregation of Harlem Hospital began out of the less auspicious necessities born of World War I. As early as 1918, with fewer white doctors available for staffing, a small number of Black physicians began acquiring introductory level positions in New York City’s municipal hospital system. In 1919, Louis T. Wright became the first Black doctor to join Harlem Hospital’s medical workforce and, shortly thereafter, Harlem activists began a directed campaign to bring more Black practitioners onto the staff. Their protests and negotiations led to gradual but substantive gains and, by 1930, compelled Mayor James Walker to orchestrate a reorganization of the entire municipal hospital administration, generating numerous positions for black practitioners on the staff and adding Wright to the governing board.

While many deemed the reorganization a tremendous success, significant resistance emerged, not only from resentful white practitioners, but also from a large swath of Harlem’s Black doctors who felt the new appointments had been disproportionately allotted to graduates of elite medical schools and that graduates of Black medical institutions, like Howard and Meharry, had been overlooked. In the years that followed, bitter factions emerged over who deserved the new appointments and whether the hospital should function as a cutting-edge integrated research center or an institution dedicated to the training of Black personnel.

Relying on autobiographical accounts, historical newspapers, and other primary source materials, my paper focuses on the experiences of May Chinn (the first Black woman to serve as an intern at Harlem Hospital) and Godfrey Nurse (a Black practitioner who was dismissed after an ethics inquiry) to demonstrate how intersectional tensions around race, class, and gender exerted a determinant influence over the desegregation process and shaped standards of professional legitimacy both within, and beyond, Harlem.