In my work on the Colored Orphan Asylum, I came across James McCune
Smith, M.D.  who was born in New York in 1811 or 1812, and certainly deserves
recognition.   The following description is taken from my writing in process:
He was the son of a former slave from South Carolina and her owner,
attended the African Free School, where he was quickly recognized as a child
who "evinced powers of mind and indications of talent of a superior order"
accompanied by modesty and unpretentious behavior.    After graduating from
school and being privately tutored in Latin and Greek he applied to attend a
medical school in New York, but was rejected on account of race.  With the
assistance of "influential friends" and with financial aid from the Glasgow
Emancipation Society, he sailed from New York to Scotland, to enter the
University of Glasgow, a center of scientific research and learning and one of
the most renowned medical schools in the western world.  Considered an
excellent student, he earned a BA degree in 1835, a master's degree in 1836,
and a M.D. in 1837.  Before returning to New York, he was given a farewell
dinner during which he was praised for his "stellar academic" and other
accomplishments.  At this dinner, Smith spoke of the prejudice that awaited
him in New York, "insults," he said, "which harm not the body, but which
enter the soul."  He promised to devote his life to the eradication of slavery
and the interests of people of color.  According to a contemporary and fellow
physician, Martin Delaney, he did just that.  Smith was a "man of no ordinary;
talents," standing "high as a scholar and gentleman in the city, amidst the
Literati of a hundred seats of learning, wrote Delaney in 1853."  He lectured
constantly, debated persons who believed in the inferiority of the "colored
race," and wrote a pamphlet refuting the racist views of U.S. Senator John C.
Calhoun.  He was active in the Underground Railroad and in the African
American Convention movement beginning in about 1830, and in almost every
organization of importance in the black community.  He was a prolific letter-
writer, and for a time was contributing editor to the Colored American. He
later became a contributing editor for Frederick Douglass' newspaper, The
North Star and wrote an introduction to Douglass' second book, My Bondage
and My Freedom, published in 1855.  Concurrently, he practiced medicine,
and operated two apothecary stores.  In 1844 he was appointed physician to
the Colored Orphan Asylum.  He was kind and caring, and a profound thinker
and scientist, but was excluded from membership in the New York Medical
society.
Eve P. Smith, DSW