Speakers and Archives Headline CUIMC’s Black History Celebrations

CUIMC celebrated Black History Month with several inspiring talks and a guided tour of archival photographs and documents related to CUIMC’s own Black history.

The celebration began on Feb. 10 at the CUIMC Faculty Club, where the Department of Medicine hosted “A Century of Black History Commemorations,” marking the 100^th anniversary of the first Black history celebrations. The event featured a lecture by the Reverend Rashad Raymond Moore, PhD, senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Moore urged his audience to “live into our counter-narrative,” and traced Black History through “memory, medicine, and mandate.”

On Feb. 12, “From Archives to Action,” which featured a guided tour of archival materials documenting the participation of Black students and faculty in the life and history of the four schools of the medical center. The event was hosted by Health Sciences Library Archives, the African, Black, and Caribbean Employee Resource Group, and the School of Nursing.

During the tour, visitors were able to read Charles Drew’s 1939 application for admission to VP&S’s medical science program, newsletters of the medical center’s Civil Rights-era Coalition to End War, Racism, and Oppression, and correspondence of trailblazing psychiatrist Elizabeth Davis, a 1949 graduate of VP&S. Katherine Satriano, head of archives and special collections at CUIMC, curated the materials for the event and explained to participants the significance of each item.

“I was aware of African American contributions to the medical center, but to see images and contemporary descriptions of individuals such as Columbia surgeon Kenneth Forde and blood bank pioneer Charles Drew, MD, MSD, was amazing,” said Catrena Wilson, assistant director of operations for ColumbiaDoctors Midtown, who helped organize the day’s events. “The collection of photographs and documents on Black history at CUIMC is truly impressive.”

Two talks followed the tour. In the first, Ashley Graham-Perel, assistant professor of nursing, highlighted the role and history of the Lincoln School for Nurses (1898-1961). Located in the Bronx, the Lincoln School was the first New York City school established to educate Black women in the arts of nursing. 

In the second talk, Robert Fullilove, professor of sociomedical sciences, recalled his participation in the Civil Rights Movement. A field secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1964 to 1967, Fullilove conveyed the excitement (and danger) of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

Asked about how the Black community of today could best face current public health challenges, Fullilove argued that churches could play an important role. “Certainly, in places like Harlem, churches can serve as vehicles for organizing the community and disseminating accurate public health information,” he said.

“I’m familiar with Dr. Fullilove’s work and career, but every time I hear him speak, I learn something new,” said Martine Lecorps, staff associate in the departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics and Microbiology & Immunology and the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center. “This is Black History from the source. I can’t imagine a day better spent."