Building Access Where None Existed

Black History Month invites us to look beyond individual achievement and examine how systems change. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward did more than earn medical degrees in eras defined by exclusion. They built institutions that made quality care and professional training possible for others.

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams earned his MD from Chicago Medical College in 1883 and became widely recognized for performing one of the earliest documented successful heart operations. Yet his greatest impact may have been founding Provident Hospital in Chicago. At a time when Black patients were denied admission to many hospitals and Black clinicians were denied training opportunities, Provident created both access and excellence. Williams later served as Chief Surgeon at Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, helped organize the National Medical Association, and became the first African American inducted into the American College of Surgeons.

Dr. Susan Smith McKinney Steward earned her MD from the New York Medical College for Women in 1870, graduating as valedictorian. She became the first Black woman physician in New York State and focused her practice on women and children in Brooklyn. She helped co-found the Brooklyn Women’s Homeopathic Hospital and Dispensary and served at the Brooklyn Home for Aged Colored People. Like Williams, Steward understood that healthcare equity requires physical spaces, professional leadership, and community trust. Their shared legacy reminds us that progress is not only about entry into existing systems. It is about building new ones when the old ones exclude.

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