Austin Maurice Curtis MD

African-American physician Austin Maurice Curtis, Sr., was born January 20, 1868, in Raleigh, North Carolina; he was a prominent turn-of-the-century physician and protégé of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams.

His first internship took place at Chicago’s Provident Hospital in 1891. He was also the first Black surgeon on staff of Cook County Hospital (a non-segregated hospital) in 1896.

Curtis was a professor of surgery at Howard University for twenty-five years and was chief surgeon at Freedmen’s Hospital from 1898-1938. He died in 1939.