Whittier C. Atkinson: Doctor to All, Regardless of Ability to Pay

In nineteen twenty-four, Whittier C. Atkinson graduated from Howard University's School of Medicine, one of the nation's leading historically Black medical schools. He brought his practice to Coatesville, Pennsylvania in nineteen twenty-seven, and within a decade he had done something remarkable: he founded the Clement Atkinson Memorial Hospital in nineteen thirty-six, a facility that offered quality medical care to anyone who needed it, regardless of their ability to pay.

At a time when Black patients were routinely turned away from white hospitals and many Americans had no access to health care at all, Atkinson built an institution that operated on a different principle entirely. His peers recognized him as the first African American president of the Chester County Medical Society, and Pennsylvania named him Practitioner of the Year in nineteen sixty. He lived to ninety-seven, dying in nineteen ninety-one.