In November 2018 Professor Joanne Edey-Rhodes of Hunter College accepted posthumous Fellowship on behalf of Smith’s descendants.

James McCune Smith was born in New York City in 1813 as an enslaved person, and at age 14 was freed by the state’s emancipation act. A graduate of New York’s African Free School, he was denied admittance to medical schools in New York in the 1830s because of racial prejudice. Instead, he attended the University of Glasgow, where he earned a BA, MA, and MD. After completing a residency in Paris, he returned to New York in 1837 and opened his own medical practice, treating Black and white patients.

Smith was the first Black American to earn a medical degree and publish a medical case report; in addition, he ran the first Black-owned pharmacy in the United States. He was also the medical director of the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City for 20 years and an active abolitionist and essayist. Smith was a co-founder (with Frederick Douglass) of the Radical Abolitionist Party.

Smith’s posthumous Fellowship certificate is a replica of the one he would have received in 1847.

In 1847, in recognition of his accomplishments, Smith was put forth for Fellowship by two members of the newly created New York Academy of Medicine; however, after a series of procedural delays, Smith’s nomination was withheld, with the excuse that accepting him as a Fellow would be “inexpedient.” To correct this unjust, discriminatory action, NYAM elected Smith to Academy Fellowship in November 2018. At that year’s Discourse & Awards ceremony NYAM President Dr. Judith A. Salerno presented Smith’s posthumous certificate of Fellowship (a replica of the one given to Fellows in 1847) to Professor Joanne Edey-Rhodes of Hunter College, who accepted on behalf of Smith’s descendants.

View the Awards ceremony on Youtube

NYAM President Dr. Judith A. Salerno and Professor Joanne Edey-Rhodes with Smith’s posthumous Fellowship certificate.