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Abstract
This dissertation has the principal focus of Leonidas Berry, a Black physician in the Jim Crow North, to shed light on the condition of Black physicians under Jim Crow, their efforts to provide care to the Black community through public health outfits, and their collective fight to undo segregation in the American Medical Association. With Berry as the guide, the dissertation navigates his particular journey as a young medical student at the University of Chicago affiliated Rush Medical College, zeroing in on the racially restrictive structures within medicine. This dissertation then chronicles his fight as president of the National Medical Association, working alongside the Medical Committee for Human Rights, to desegregate the American Medical Association. Finally, it examines his public health efforts in Chicago and Cairo, Illinois. In 1950s Chicago, as the president of the Cook County Physicians Association, the oldest organization of Black doctors in Illinois, Leonidas Berry and others organized to create a set of public health clinics throughout Chicago on the West, South, and North sides, providing resources and care to those suffering from narcotic addiction. Worthy of note is the fact that the clinics, in their lifespan from 1951 to 1959, predominantly served Black patients. The rise and fall of the medical counseling clinics coincided with the politics of the day, receiving their initial state funding at the beginning of the decade with calls to protect children from “narcotics,” and having that funding not renewed due to changing political tides and public perceptions of people suffering from narcotic addiction. The final public health effort of Leonidas Berry in the dissertation is his work in Cairo, Illinois. Working in collaboration with the local AME church and the larger AME infrastructure, in 1969 Berry visited Cairo, Illinois and sought to ameliorate the health conditions of its Black residents. When Black residents noted a lack of access to the only hospital in the town, St. Mary’s Hospital, Berry returned in 1970 with other Black medical professionals and clerical workers to set up a temporary clinic. Later, Berry worked with the community to advocate for OEO funds to set up a mobile health clinic for the residents of Cairo. Over his long career, Leonidas Berry pushed to expand the definition of health and wellness and found ways to serve the underserved. The narrative of Berry adds to the history of Black physicians, the history of medicine, and African American history.