"Alonzo-Clifton-McCennan" (May 1, 1855-April 14,1912)

Was an African-American doctor who was the co-founder of the Charleston Hospital and Training School for Nurses,established  to provide for the education of African-American nurses, care of African American patients,and hospital privileges for African American doctors.It opened in 1897. He had gone to medical school after being the second African-American appointed as a midshipman to United States Naval Academy.He resigned in order to go directly into medicine.Graduating with medical and pharmacy degrees,he married and settled in Charleston,South Carolina,where he set up his medical practice.

Alonzo was born in Columbia,South Carolina.Ophaned when young by his mother's death,he was raised after the Civil War by his uncle,Edward B.Thompson, a free African American barber.He began his higher education at the Benedict Institute in Columbia.He was later appointed as a legislative page in the South Carolina state legislature with the help of another uncle Samuel B.Thompson,a Republican representative.

Alonzo was appointed to the United States Naval Academy in 1873,he resigned four months later. Alonzo studied at the Wesleyan Academy in Massachusetts and the University of South Carolina Before graduation. He moved to Washington, D.C. to attend Howard University College of Medicine, a historically African American college. He graduated in 1880 with honors, and degrees in medicine and pharmacy.Alonzo  returned to the South and initially established a practice in Augusta,Georgia.In 1884 Alonzo moved to Charleston, South Carolina.In 1884 Alonzo moved to Charleston, South Carolina.  He had met Richard Harvey Cain when Richard was a South Carolina State Senator and they became friends.After Richard was elected as United States Representative at-large district,he resolved to make appointments to the service academies.His office conducted a competitive examination in the summer of 1873.While Alonzo had longed hoped to become doctor, his family inability to afford college made an appointement to military college a promising stepping-stone. after intense preparation,Alonzo placed second in the examination accepted an appointment to the United States Naval Academy.

Alonzo was aware that the first African American midship,James Henry Conyers,had complained of   suffering racism at the academy.He did not encounter any racism during the Academy entrance examination.Alonzo was of  mixed race,with a predominately European appearance: he had blond hair, blue eyes,  and " was to all apperances a white man." Because of this, he was not visibly classified as Black and did not encounter as much racism as did some African Americans.

The year after Alonzo resignation,Henry James Conyers,had complained was appointed to the Academy and also faced hazing. Henry was dismissed from the Academy in Fall of  1875 for using "opprobirious language" during a mess hall fight.He was reinstated by Secretary of the Navy George Maxwell Robeson, the racial harassment continued. Henry resigned permanently. after southern states disenfranchised most African Americans at the turn of the century,closing out most African Americans from federal,state and local elective offices, no other African Americans were appointed to the Naval Academy for the following six decades.

Four years after graduation from medical school, Alonzo moved to Charleston,South Carolina, where he established his practice and gained an "excellent reputation as a physician." In 1892 he opened Charleston's first African American drug store,the People's Pharmacy,which became a success.
In 1896 Alonzo and but one of Charleston's African American physicians lobbed for a hospital to serve Charleston's African American population and provide the doctors with otherwise unobtainable hospital privileges.Led by Dr.Lucy Hughes Brown, the training of African American nurses began that year with theorectical lectures held in the auditorium of Wallingford Academy; attempts to hold practical training at the City Hospital and nursing homes were rebuffed.

The hospital and Training School for Nurses was chartered by the South Carolina by the South Carolina legislature in July 1897,and opened with 24 beds in a three-story building purchased for $4,500 (equivalent  to $ 132,372.00 in present-day terms). Funds for the purchase of the building and  necessary equipment were secured almost entirely by local charity,including support from the Duke Endownment. A historical marker commemorating Alonzo and the hospital was erected in 2010 near 135 Cannon Street in Charleston.

Alonzo married Ida Veronica Ridely, a schoolteacher from a prominent African-American family in Augusta,Georgia.Their home in Charleston became a locus of social life for African American elite in the city,frequently hosted recitals,literary gatherings, and other social functions.The couple had three children: Maude ( 1885-1976), Harriet (b. 1890),and Ridley Ulysses (1887-1921).

Dr. McClennan died in Charleston. He is buried in the Humane and Friendly Society in Charleston.