William F. Penn
William F. Penn | |
|---|---|
 William Penn | |
| Born | January 16, 1871 |
| Died | May 31, 1934 (aged 63) |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Physician |
| Known for | Founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People |
William Fletcher Penn (January 16, 1871 in New Glasgow, Amherst County, Virginia – May 31, 1934) was a prominent African-American medical doctor in Atlanta, Georgia and a founding member of the Atlanta Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).[1]
As a child Penn attended public schools in Lynchburg, Virginia and then Hampton Institute and Virginia Normal and Industrial School (now Virginia State University). He first attended medical school at Leonard Medical School for Blacks (now Shaw University) in Raleigh, North Carolina before being invited to attend Yale Medical School in 1893. He graduated in 1897, the first African-American to do so, as well as the first African-American to head the university yearbook.[2][3]
In 1898 he met and later married Lula Tompkins, taking her son, Louis T. Wright, as his step-son. Penn had a significant influence on Wright, who also pursued a career in medicine, graduating fourth in his class at Harvard Medical School and serving as the first African-American surgeon on staff at the Harlem Hospital.[2]
Penn was a founding member of the Atlanta chapter of the NAACP in 1917, a national organization for which his stepson Louis would later serve as chairman.
He is mentioned as a speaker at a meeting of city leaders in the aftermath of the Atlanta Race Riot in 1906, and in 1921 at the opening of Joyland, the first amusement park opened for blacks in Atlanta.
References[edit]
- ^ Mason, Herman (1997). Black Atlanta in the Roaring Twenties. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780752408873.
- ^ a b Reynolds, P. Preston (June 2000). "Dr. Louis T. Wright and the NAACP: Pioneers in Hospital Racial Integration". American Journal of Public Health. 90 (6): 883–892. doi:10.2105/AJPH.90.6.883. PMC 1446256. PMID 10846505.
- ^ Geraldine Rhoades Beckford Biographical Dictionary of American Physicians of African Ancestry, 1800-1920, p. 251
- People from Atlanta
- 19th-century African-American physicians
- 19th-century American physicians
- Physicians from Georgia (U.S. state)
- NAACP activists
- 1871 births
- 1934 deaths
- Yale School of Medicine alumni
- Physicians from Virginia
- American civil rights activists
- 20th-century African-American physicians
- 20th-century American physicians