Born a freedman in Norfolk, Virginia on March 9th 1825, Alexander Thomas Augusta was the first African American professor of medicine in the United States. As a youth, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he worked as a barber to pay for a medical education, a childhood dream of his. He secretly learned to read and write under the tutelage of Daniel Payne, a future bishop in the AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church and president of Wilberforce University in Ohio. He applied to the University of Pennsylvania, but was refused admission. Although he faced institutionalized racism throughout his career, the university cited inadequate preparation in its rejection of him. Augusta persisted in his education and arranged for private instruction from a doctor on the faculty.
In 1853, he moved to Toronto, where he studied medicine at Trinity College. While he was still a medical student, Augusta opened a drugstore on Yonge Street, which also advertised tooth extractions and the “application of leeches.” Augusta completed his medical training and graduated in 1856, but did not receive his Bachelor of Medicine degree until 1860. After he completed his training, he set up a practice as a surgeon across the street from the drugstore. Augusta had no problem attracting patients, most of whom were White. Augusta was also president of the Association for the Education of Colored People in Canada, which provided books and school supplies to Black children. In addition to his professional and civic duties, Augusta played a vigorous role in racial matters.
He supported local antislavery activities, which supported the American movement. Whether seeking a venue for a visiting American abolitionist speaker or drafting a resolution opposing an anti-Black candidate for Canada’s parliament, Augusta never tired of supporting the fundamental issue of racial justice. As he would do so throughout his life, he boldly confronted racism and discrimination head on. In fact, Augusta was willing to take unprecedented action whenever the cause demanded it, as he did when he canceled his membership in an all-Black church in Toronto in order to demonstrate his opposition to segregated institutions that existed in the city.
With the bombardment of Fort Sumter by Confederate forces on the 12th of April 1861, the United States had been plunged into civil war. Alexander Thomas Augusta grew increasingly anxious about the destiny of his country and the fate of his “race.” On January 1st 1863, during the Civil War (1861–65), President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which not only freed the slaves in Confederate-controlled states and areas, but also called for the enlistment of African Americans into the Union Army. A week later, Augusta wrote to Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton asking that he be appointed as surgeon to some of the new “colored” regiments or as a physician to some of the depots of ‘freedmen.’
He soon received an appointment confirmation, and Dr. Augusta and his wife set out for the United States with the hopes of supporting Black soldiers and the Union army. When he arrived, Alexander Thomas Augusta was thrust back into the racist soil that is America. Just two days before his U.S. Surgeon General exam to prepare for duty, he received a letter claiming his appointment was “recalled” because he was Black. The letter also noted that due to his Canadian status and Great Britain’s proclamation of neutrality, his appointment would violate those terms. Augusta refused to accept defeat and wrote again to President Lincoln, noting his desire to be of use and the high rate of Black servicemen in comparison to their White peers as evidence of his need.
On April 1st, the Medical Board reversed the decision and on April 14, 1863, the 38-year-old physician received a major’s commission as a surgeon for Black troops and became head surgeon of the 7th Regiment Infantry, US Colored Troops. He was the Army’s first Black physician out of eight Black officers in the Union Army to serve during the war. Even though he was stationed with the 7th U.S. Colored Infantry, he was working with a team of White surgeons, all of whom he out-ranked. With his appointment, Augusta became the highest-ranking Black officer in the U.S. military, and an instant hero of the Black community.
Augusta’s first station was at Camp Stanton in Maryland but upon his arrival, he was met with immediate discrimination. Not long after he reported for duty with the 7th United States Colored Infantry, the other surgeons, all of whom were White, refused to work with him. It was their understanding that all commissioned officers were to be White men. To them, having to work with a Black doctor was “humiliating". In addition Augusta outranked them, which meant that they would be subject to orders from an African American. Despite being a commissioned officer and a doctor, his pay of $7 a month, (the standard wage for a Black private), was less than that of a White private. A personal appeal to Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts resulted in the proper salary for his rank.
Complaints from White subordinates led Lincoln to transfer him to run the local Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington DC in 1863. The hospital had been founded in 1862 and was the first to provide medical care to former slaves. This appointment made Augusta the first Black hospital administrator in the United States. His tenure as medical director of the facility was brief. Since he was placed on “detached service,” it meant that he could be sent wherever he was needed. Augusta’s position and rank continued to spark controversy as he was shifted from one assignment to another, despite the progress he was making.
His rank did not shield him from racism. On one occasion, in February of 1964 Augusta was refused entry to a Washington streetcar by the conductor, who told him he had to ride outside. When Augusta attempted to enter the tram, the conductor pulled him outside, forcing him to walk. After the incident, he wrote a letter to the judge advocate protesting this treatment, who forwarded the issue to Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, a sponsor for a bill prohibiting streetcar segregation. Sumner, a known abolitionist, recounted Augusta’s story on the Senate floor, arguing that it was a stain on the country and worse than being defeated in battle. A year later, in March 1865, legislation was passed making streetcar discrimination illegal, another win for Alexander Augusta.
On another occasion when in uniform, Augusta was attacked on a Baltimore train. He immediately wrote a letter that was published in several newspapers. In it, he declared his right “to wear the insignia of my office, and if I am either afraid or ashamed to wear them, anywhere, I am not fit to hold my commission.” Less than a month before the war ended, in March of 1865, Augusta received the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. This promotion made Augusta the first Black person ever to gain this stature. That new prestige also earned Augusta an invitation to the White House from President and First Lady Lincoln on February 23, 1865. He gladly accepted and after being met with trepidation by some guests, his presence made the headlines on the Washington Chronicle newspaper.
After the war ended in the spring of 1865, Augusta eventually mustered out of military service. He went to work for the Freedmen’s Bureau, a War Department agency, which provided food, clothing, fuel, medical care, legal aid, and education to former slaves (and poor whites) in the war-torn South. In 1868, the Freedmen’s Hospital became a teaching hospital for Howard University Medical School. He continued his practice in Washington D.C, and taught in Howard University Medical Department. Augusta became one of the school’s first six faculty members and the first Black medical professor in the country. Augusta continued to make strides, cofounding the National Medical Society after being denied membership to the Medical Association of the District of Columbia.
In 1869, for his long and distinguished career in medicine, Howard University awarded Augusta the degree of medicinal doctor, the first honorary degree ever given to a man of color by an American university. Two years later, he also received an honorary master’s degree. Even after the Civil War ended, Augusta and other Blacks continued to be forced to travel in the segregated section of trains. He testified before a Congressional Committee on behalf of Kate Brown, a patient who had been forcibly removed from a “whites only” railcar of the Georgetown Railroad Company headed for Washington. In 1873, the Supreme Court enforced earlier direction that the railroad company had to make all its cars equally available to all passengers, regardless of skin color.
During the next decade, he taught anatomy at Howard, served briefly as dean of the medical department, and worked at the Smallpox and Freedman’s Hospitals. However, these were difficult times for Black educational institutions. As a result of the Depression of 1873, Howard University suffered a major loss of government funding, and for months at a time Augusta and his colleagues worked for little or no financial compensation. These accolades were well deserved. As an African American and as a doctor, he had overcome numerous obstacles, and had broken new ground for people of color. He died at his home in Washington in 1890, just four days before Christmas 1890. Alexander Thomas Augusta was the first Black officer to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
By his sheer refusal to accept second-class status, Alexander Thomas Augusta had compiled an extraordinary list of firsts for an African American: