Title: Daniel Hale Williams, Negro surgeon
Description: One of the great unsung Negroes of American history is Dr. Daniel Hale Williams. Why have so few people heard of him? In 1893 Dr. Williams performed the world's first successful heart operation. Why is this not a well-known fact? These are the facts and questions that stimulated Helen Buckler to spend 10 years in 14 States, with hundreds of people and government archives, documents, and records in order to unearth the life story of America's first Negro surgeon and the facts and circumstances of his history-making achievement. The search led from question to question. Where did he acquire the knowledge and skill for this operation only 30 years after emancipation? What happened to him after he achieved this medical breakthrough? What did he do to help the cause of his own race? Why did some Negroes worship him and some hate and fear him? Why was he called "disloyal" and was he really? Since he looked white, why didn't he "go white"? From the answers emerge not only the fascinating portrait of a complex and gifted man, but a revealing picture of Negro life and history from 1856-1931. _Daniel Hale Williams_ is a glowing tribute to a great man which reads the power and drama of fiction.
Subjects: African Americans, Biography, Surgeons, General Surgery, History
Places: United States
People: Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931)