"Louis Tompkins Wright"(July 23,1891 October 8,1952)

Medical researcher, war hero and political activist,was born to former slaves in La Grange,Georgia.He earned a bachelor's degree from Atlanta's Clark University in 1911 and a medical degree from Harvard University Medical School in 1915.Louis activism began at Harvard where he missed three weeks of medical school to join NAACP picket lines protesting The Birth of a Nation.He returned to his studies,and graduated fourth in his class in 1915.He served in France as a physician and captain in the U.S. Army in World War2.There he successfully implemented life-saving treatments and suffered exposure to poison gas that led to both a Purple Heart and a lifelong respiratory illness.Upon his return to the United States he moved to New York where in 1919 he became the first African American appointed to the surgical staff at a Harlem Hospital.Louis protested the dilapidated conditions of the hospital,raised the its patients care standards,and brought the hospital to national eminence.He began publication of the scholarly Harlem Hospital Bulletin and established the hospital's medical library in 1934.During the 1930s he authored columns for the NAACP magazine Crisis,where he challenged the contention that biological factors caused African Americans to harbor more syphilis and infectious disease than the general public.He continued to served on the staff of Harlem until 1949 in various capacities,including directory of the department of surgery and president of its medical board.Louis headed the team that first used Aureomycin.He became and expert in the treatment of head injuries and introduced the introduced the intradermal method of vaccination.Louis also founded the cancer research center at Harlem Hospital known as the Harlem Hospital Cancer Research Foundation.Louis died from tuberculosis.