Detroit’s Black Hospitals

Detroit’s Black Hospitals

By Rod Arroyo, FAICP

In order to tell the story of Black hospitals in Detroit, I start with a brief history of early hospitals in Detroit, including the segregationist policies that forced Black doctors to open separate facilities in order to care for their patients.

According to Historic Detroit, St. Vincent Hospital, located at Randolph and Larned, was Detroit’s first hospital.  Established in 1845 by the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, it served the poor, but did not admit any Black patients. It changed its name to St. Mary’s in 1850 and moved to a new location.  It moved again in 1879.  The hospital closed in 1987 and was demolished in 1990.

Detroit’s first hospitals that are still in operation were established by various charitable organizations to provide care for the public.  This included the oldest, Harper Hospital (est. 1863), Hutzel Hospital (est. 1868), Children’s Hospital (est. 1886), and Grace Hospital (est. 1888).

While the initial mission of these hospitals was to care for all Detroiters regardless of their ability to pay, these hospitals and others were also the focus of many claims of discrimination by the Black community. A New York Times article from June 24, 1956 reported on a four-and-one-half-year study that asserted that Black Detroiters did not have equal opportunities for either medical or nursing training and practice.  The survey included 47 Detroit hospitals, two medical colleges, and two nursing colleges. Most of these institutions claimed to have a non-discrimination policy, but only a few were found to put this into practice.  Of the 47 hospitals, 13 said Black patients were rarely admitted, four reported no Black admissions, and 20 reported hospital segregation. Only 23 hospitals reported having Black doctors on staff.  Only four of the 17 hospitals the American Medical Association approved to train interns had admitted Black graduates from accredited medical schools. Detroit’s Urban League also documented segregationist and discriminatory practices.

Jessica Nickrand writes in The Detroit Medical Center: Race and Renewal in the Motor City: “By the administrators of the larger, more mainstream hospitals excluding Black trainees and employees, instead relegating them to continue their work at Detroit’s large system of ‘Black hospitals,’ hospital leaders contributed to not only a segregated, two-tier system of health care, but also a segregated, two-tier system of health care employment. Black hospitals had few resources and offered lower salaries for their employees.”

Detroit had 18 Black-owned hospitals, all of which are now gone. In an article in the Detroit Free Press, June 27, 2022, Detroit Official Historian Jamon Jordan describes the history of these hospitals. Also, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded the Kellogg African American Health Care Project, which researched and collected oral histories related to Black hospitals in southeast Michigan. Another resource is the Metropolitan Planning Services Facebook page maintained by George Myers III, Ph.D.

I created a map of Black hospitals to share online.  The base map of the static map below is a 1946 street map. Most of the 18 hospitals are within the study area of my other research.  The five hospitals located outside this study area are not shown on the static map but are included in the online, interactive map.

Mercy General Hospital was the first Black Hospital in Detroit. Fleeing persecution by the Ku Klux Klan in Montgomery, Alabama, Drs. David and Daisy Northcross relocated to Detroit, Michigan in 1916, determined to rebuild their medical practice and serve the city’s African American community. Drawing on their experience working in the South, they initially collaborated with the Allied Medical Society, a precursor to the Detroit Medical Society. When their collaborative efforts stalled, the Northcrosses boldly established Detroit’s first African American hospital in 1917, creating a crucial healthcare resource for the community. This 20-bed hospital was located at 73 Russell, in Detroit’s Black Bottom neighborhood.

Detroit’s second Black Hospital, and the first non-profit Black hospital, was Dunbar Memorial, located at 580 Frederick Street, in the neighborhood now generally referred to as the Cultural Center. This structure is still standing, one of only four Black hospital structures remaining, although all are closed as hospitals.  Dunbar Memorial was established by Dr. James Ames, and hospital physicians included Dr. Robert Greenidge, Dr. Albert Cleage, Sr., Dr. Lloyd Bailer, Dr. Herbert Sims, Dr. Alexander Turner, and Dr. Ossian Sweet.

Jamon Jordan writes that there were 500 Black hospitals in the U.S. at the height of segregation, 18 of which were in Detroit.  Today, there is only one – Howard University Medical Center.