Pediatricians’ society issues 'long overdue apology' for racist actions against first Black members

It makes for ugly reading. In a policy statement out today, the American Academy of Pediatrics confronts the racist treatment of its first two Black members, Alonzo deGrate Smith and Roland Boyd Scott of Howard University College of Medicine. The doctors' memberships were initially rejected in 1939 before they were admitted in 1945. From verbatim board meeting notes in the 1940s: “We allow negroes to come to our meeting and we fix a separate place for them to sit. They do not become members. If they became members they would want to come and eat with you at the table. You cannot hold them down." Founded a century ago and planning centennial observances this year, the group now says, “we cannot do so without authentically acknowledging, owning, and reconciling past discriminatory transgressions like the shameful gauntlet to membership experienced by Drs. Alonzo deGrate Smith and Roland Boyd Scott."