This is the nation's first bioethics center devoted to engaging the sciences, humanities, law and religious faiths in the exploration of the core moral issues which underlie research and medical treatment of African Americans and other underserved people. The official launching of the Center took place two years after President Bill Clinton's apology to the nation, the survivors of the Syphilis Study, Tuskegee University, and Tuskegee/Macon County for the U.S. Public Health Service medical experiment. Before it became the Bioethics Center it was The John A. Andrew Hospital, which was the only public medical facility in Macon County, Alabama, and was one of the few places rural blacks could get treated. Each year, the hospital held free medical clinics for the rural Blacks who lived nearby – not just from Macon County, but also from across the state and from Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. It offered an opportunity for Black doctors to gather, to teach and inspire each other and to network. Black doctors traveled down from urban medical centers all over the country.