- This is the hospital that sparked the fury of the KKK.

The Tuskegee Veterans Hospital was the first federal hospital staffed and operated by Black physicians.

Remember the famous Tuskegee Airmen?

During World War II, they were America's first Black military pilots.

After their unmatched success in the skies, they returned home.

But where could they go if they needed medical treatment?

Famed or not, they were still Black men coming home to a racist healthcare system.

If they showed up to just any veteran's hospital, they could be turned away or provided subpar care.

There was only one hospital in the entire country that could give these vets the quality healthcare they deserved, and it happened to be in their hometown of Tuskegee, Alabama.

But a federal hospital being run by Black physicians didn't come without intimidation and threats of violence.

This is how a hospital became a battleground in the fight for civil rights.

(upbeat music) In 1919, organizations like the NAACP were advocating for better medical treatment and facilities for the hundreds of thousands of Black soldiers returning from World War I.

Why build a Black VA hospital in the segregated Jim Crow South?

Of the 400,000 Black American soldiers that returned from World War I, 300,000 were from the South with almost no access to treatment.

So the government decided to find a suitable location there.

Tuskegee was already a place of Black healthcare excellence because of the Tuskegee Institute.

The institute's first president Booker T. Washington believed the best way for Black Americans to seek a future outside poverty was through vocational education and especially better health.

What began as the campus infirmary led by Halle Tanner Dillon, the first certified female physician in Alabama, grew into the first hospital for Black Americans in the state, John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital.

The hospital served Black residents in the surrounding communities and created a vibrant Black professional class where doctors like Daniel Hale Williams, the first Black surgeon to operate on the human heart, met to train and share ideas.

- It was not the best African-American healthcare.

This was the best healthcare, period.

Because it was not limited by racism, it was not limited by segregation, it was not limited by any of the nonsensical ways that people do it, and by having all the minds come together, something was taking place here that was not ever seen before.

- [Harini] After Booker T. Washington's death, Robert R. Moton became the second president of Tuskegee Institute.

Moton donated 300 acres of institute land to the federal government for the VA hospital.

- Tuskegee Institute was a nationwide model of Black excellence and progress, and it already housed the John A. Andrew Memorial Hospital on its campus.

So Moton envisioned the two institutions working together and the Veterans Hospital would give Black medical personnel an opportunity to practice, because there were so few opportunities for them to practice.

- Having the Veterans Hospital in Tuskegee was a huge win for the institute, the town and American history.

But after the dust of construction settled, the real chaos began.

US government officials had promised the white people in Tuskegee that the hospital would be controlled and operated by whites.

At the same time, Moton was pressuring the head of the Veterans Bureau to choose an all Black staff, arguing for the competency and training of Black physicians.

Moton was fighting for a Black administrator of a federal facility, something unheard of during this time.

Despite his efforts, government officials decide to hire a rumored KKK member, Colonel Robert H. Stanley as director of the hospital.

And Stanley worked hard to prevent the hiring of Black physicians.

Stanley wrote to Moton, "It would be utterly impossible to function successfully with a mixed staff of white and colored officers."

With nowhere else to turn, Moton appealed to President Warren Harding, asking for Black staff to be offered equal opportunity to compete for hospital positions.

He also warned Harding of the potential backlash from Black voters and the Black press.

- [Voice Actor] "It will bring down on my head and on Tuskegee Institute an avalanche of criticism which I think would be entirely justified.

It will bring down upon your administration throughout the country, a storm of protest on the part of the Negro press, and from Negroes, North and South, which I think would be most unfortunate."

- At that time, the Republicans were the party of Lincoln, and they wanted the Black votes.

They depended on the Black vote.

But this time, the Black voters wanted something in return.

They wanted support of their causes.

They wanted support of their advancement.

- President Harding directed the Veterans Bureau to hold off on hiring, until an eligible list of colored citizens could be determined.

This contradicted the government's promise to the whites in Tuskegee, but Moton had the ear of the president, plenty of eligible Black staff to recommend, the support of both the NAACP and the National Medical Association.

Things were starting to seem hopeful, but then- - Well, the word got to the Klan, when they came to meet in Tompkins Hall, to say, "Okay, look, we have Klan members that are ready to come and burn this place down.

We've been getting along when Booker T. Washington was here, but now you're about to make it where we're gonna just burn it down, because you're trying to have Blacks to run this place."

- [Harini] Racist protestors and the KKK were threatening to kill Moton and destroy Tuskegee Institute.

- [Voice Actor] "If Negroes who are thoroughly educated and trained for such service can't serve their own people, can't serve in that hospital, on land given by a Negro school, for negro veterans, then you may as well wipe out Tuskegee Institute and every other Negro institution in the world."

- Moton and the NAACP submitted editorials to the Black press and sent telegrams to government officials driving home the hypocrisy in barring Black staff from caring for Black patients.

The pressure on Moton skyrocketed.

He received anonymous death threats.

Guards were stationed on both Tuskegee's campus and at his home.

Fearing for his life, Moton sent his family away to their summer home and paused all public appearances.

But that didn't stop him from continuing his messaging campaign against the white supremacists.

The news spread to the public, and Black protestors demanded Black control of the hospital throughout the spring and summer of 1923.

It took over six months, but ultimately, the campaign was successful.

Tuskegee would be a place for the Black medical community to practice their trade.

On July 3rd, 1923, John Calhoun, a Black standout Hampton University graduate, arrived at Tuskegee VA Hospital to start his first day as bookkeeper.

Instead of a welcome, Stanley handed him an unmarked letter.

It was a letter from the KKK.

Outraged that a white employee had been replaced by a Black man, a 70-car-long caravan of high ranking Klansmen descended on Tuskegee.

They planned to capture Calhoun and burn the campus to the ground.

But they were met with something they never expected.

- Now you have all these people who were literally loyal to Booker T. and his principles.

They came by the thousands the night before and that day, and so after they had burned the cross and they were coming down like a evil serpent down North Maine, down Montgomery Road, cussing, fussing, yelling out, you know how they're gonna teach these uppity Negroes something.

Surrounding them as they were going through were Black people, white people, and Jewish people.

They found out some of the students had gone to the armory on campus, gotten those guns, and so that group walking down with those torches, with those sheets, those 700 was surrounded by a group of very upset, angry people.

There was no fear outside.

The fear was walking down the middle.

They came to burn down the campus, but they quietly walked through, because they knew that that was not gonna happen that night.

- On the hospital grounds, Klan members hunted for Calhoun, but there was nothing to find.

Calhoun had fled to safety.

The NAACP demanded Stanley's immediate removal.

Words spread across the country, and the public wanted him out.

The Veterans Bureau pressured Stanley to resign, until finally he was transferred to a different hospital.

The new administration slowly filled vacancies with Black staff from the bottom up, until only the director position was left.

In July, 1924, after years of fighting for the right to manage the hospital, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Henry Ward, M.D.

became the first Black American hospital director in VA history.

He oversaw the nation's first and only racially segregated veterans hospital.

The Tuskegee VA Hospital became a center of Black medical excellence and brought even more professionals to Tuskegee to advance their careers.

The hospital later served the Tuskegee Airmen and many other veterans who could not access healthcare anywhere else.

In 1948, the US military fully integrated, but only Black Americans served at the hospital until 1954.

By then, all VA hospitals were desegregated, making Tuskegee the first and last segregated hospital in VA history.

100 years after its founding, the Tuskegee Veterans Hospital is still as vital today as it was then.

In 1997, the hospital became part of the Central Alabama Veterans Healthcare System, which fills the vital role of serving communities of color in the Black belt and helps to address healthcare disparities in these areas.

While a significant milestone in medical history, this story is one of many in the battle for both equitable healthcare access for communities of color and representation within the medical profession.

An assessment by the Federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in 2023 found that Black patients are still more likely to receive inferior medical care and discrimination in healthcare settings compared to white patients.

Leaders like Moton recognized that representation among medical professionals was crucial.

This representation not only ensured better patient care, but also provided vital opportunities for skilled Black physicians.

And although the US has more medical professionals of color today, there is still work to do with Black doctors making up only 5.7%, even though 14.4% of the population is Black.

This story isn't just about surviving the very real threat of the KKK or overcoming discrimination, it also demonstrates how much can be accomplished through the power of community, courage, and activism.

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