James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith was a medical doctor who paved the way for African Americans. Born in slavery in 1813 in New York City, Smith attended the New York African Free-School before heading to the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he went on to become the first African American to receive a medical degree. Fluent in French, Greek, and Latin as well as a working knowledge of Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, and German, Smith was said to be one of the best-educated Americans of his time, a publication of him said. Smith would later set up a medical practice in lower Manhattan. A prolific writer, he was famously known to be an abolitionist working side by side with renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Smith opened up the first pharmacy run by an African American and would later expose scientific flaws in the racially biased U.S. Census of 1840, Physiology.org stated in an article.
