Series ll: South Dallas History

Forest Avenue Hospital – First Hospital Administrator By Dr. J. Ester Davis After the Civil War, when slavery was officially abolished on government paper, a network of hospitals emerged in the United States. It is recorded that some 500 black-owned ‘hospitals’ were erected between 1905 and 1955.  Detroit alone had 18 black-owned/operated hospitals.  Coming into the southern states were noted, and numerous clinics, but the KKK kept interrupting progress.  Some early black doctors embodied the theory that civil rights and health care were inextricably interconnecting.  The Detroit Free Press wrote that these early black doctors were unheralded civil rights heroes. Referring to an earlier article, “Relentless Audacity”* (by Dr. J. Ester Davis),  is a renowned history-making name that is still familiar to us.  Rev. Jesse Lott, a black family dynasty, now still in existence as Lott’s Funeral Home in South Dallas, was one of the significant early investors/visionaries of the Forest Avenue Hospital, seeing it through to full fruition. The three initial vested doctors for the hospital were only part of the operating equation.  A pharmacy, as mentioned in series one, highlighting French L. Cowans**, Director of Pharmacy, was seemingly the 2nd priority. Based on numerous interviews with former employees,...