1895

Founding of the National Medical Association by leading African American physicians, with Robert F. Boyd of Nashville, TN as first president. By 1904 it had fewer than 50 members; at which time Daniel Hale Williams attracted a large crowd to observe him do surgery in a white hospital at NMA’s annual meeting in Lexington, and, with Williams’ backing, its membership began to grow (Ward, 195-97). NMA began publishing its official journal (JNMA) in 1909 (Long, 167-177); it presented a unified picture of a class of doctors who saw themselves as “new Negroes” and steered away from radical political messages (169).