James McCune Smith was born in New York. His mother had purchased her freedom as a previously enslaved person. His father may have been a previously enslaved person or white merchant, Samuel Smith.

James McCune Smith became Dr. JM Smith after completing a medical degree from the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, in 1837. He was denied entry to multiple United States colleges because he was African American.

According to available records Dr. Smith was the first African American to receive a medical degree.

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Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 – August 4, 1931) was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania and worked as a shoemaker’s apprentice and barber before moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1878. By 1883 he would earn his medical degree from what is today called Northwestern University Medical School. At that time, he was one of three practicing African Americans doctors in Chicago. Williams is known for a long list of accomplishments in medicine, however at the foundation of his achievements was his pioneering efforts to reduce health disparities in the African American community.

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Dr. Andrea Sullivan has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to the profession of Naturopathic Medicine that has intersected with her dedication to the African American community. Several years after completing a PhD in Sociology/Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania, Sullivan headed westbound in 1981 to fulfill a calling into greater academic ambitions. She studied with other students in a former elementary school building that had been transformed into Bastyr College. Up from the humble beginnings of that institution, today its rigorous program is fondly referred to as the Harvard of Naturopathic Medicine.

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