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Louis Tompkins Wright. MD, was surgeon. political activist, and the first Black physician on the staff at the non-segregated Harlem Hospital in New York City. Dr. Wright was born in LaGrange, GA in 1891. His father was born into slavery but pursued an education and earned a medical degree. After his father passed away, his mother married another trailblazing Black physician, William Fletcher Penn, MD. After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1915, Dr. Wright joined the Army Medical Corps and served as a Lieutenant and Captain in World War I. He oversaw the surgery wards in a French field hospital and was later awarded the Purple Heart after a German gas attack.
Dr. Wright then moved to New York City where he started his work at Harlem Hospital. During his time there he improved the dilapidated conditions of the hospital, raised the care standards, and addressed the professionalism of the hospital staff.
In the 1930s, Dr. Wright began writing articles for NAACP's magazine, The Crisis, that challenged the thought that biological factors caused African Americans to harbor more syphilis and infectious diseases than the general population.
Dr. Wright died on October 8, 1952.
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