ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH DR. ANDREW BEST February 3, 1999 Interviewer: Ruth Moskop Transcriber: Sabrina Coburn 14 Total Pages Copyright 2000 by East Carolina University. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be produced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from East Carolina University.

RM: Good morning.

AB: Good morning.

RM: It's February 3, 1999, Wednesday morning, and I'm here at Dr. Best's office and we're about to record the third of our series of oral history interviews. Dr. Best, do I have your permission to record this interview?

AB: You do as long as you accept my apology for my voice being a little bit off. I've been suffering a little bit with laryngitis and...

RM: Your voice sounds great this morning.

AB: Okay. Thank you.

RM: Feel free to sip your coffee when you need to.

AB: Okay.

RM: Yeah. In the last interview, you had told us about how you had decided not to go to medical school at North Carolina A&T, and the Dean talked you out of it.

AB: And that he did.

RM: So, then you applied to medical school...

AB: Medical school-!was accepted at Meharry and Howard, but I got my letter of acceptance from Meharry first. I notified them that I would accept that position. The next day when the acceptance from Howard came in, I had to notify them that I had accepted a position at Meharry and that I was no longer interested in that position at Howard. (1:15)

RM: Did you have any preferences as to whether you went to Meharry or Howard at the onset?

AB: Yeah. Meharry was my first choice.

RM: Ohgood.

AB: Yeah. Meharry was my first choice. I had had a number of doctor friends. My mentor, the late Dr. Joseph P. Harrison, which we've talked about in the interviews, was a Meharrian. I was leaning towards Meharry and I was very glad that I did. After I got there, I discovered that at Meharry, the students and the interns and residents received a lot of hands-on training, where at Howard, the hands-on training was almost exclusively the property of the second or third year residents. For example, when I got out to American Army Hospital to start my internship, there were thirty-six of us interns from different medical schools all over the country, and there was one young man who had only seen one delivery from the stands. (2:50)

RM: Goodness.

AB: And none of the other thirty... Well, there was one fellow who was my classmate at Meharry who had this experience, but none of the other thirty-four had had any experience in doing a delivery by himself, on his own. But in Meharry, when they had an indigene clinic, the students from the third year on were exposed, under supervision, to seeing patients, evaluating their conditions, getting approval from the attending physician as to what he thought or what he recommended. We got the chance to do hands-on work and when it came to the obstetric service-to graduate you had to have ten the deliveries were home deliveries accomplished by student pairs. They didn't send a student out by himself. We paired off and each student had to have ten deliveries as the chief of the pair and then the others as the assistant-they didn't count-they had to have ten chief. I got my ten in early because I was very active in the clinic and I was very kind and diplomatic to the patient population. I had more patients lined up for me to do the delivery than really I needed. So, my classmate that I took along as my assistant-he was one of these quiet guys and didn't talk much-didn't have a lot of patients. He had maybe about five and I had enough on average so my patients-I let him report as the chief and I was his assistant and so we all got through. I was doing things like minor surgery, circumcisions and what not. I was-well I thought I was very well accomplished in being able to do those kinds of minor surgeries right off the bat, in other words, before I left Meharry. (5:45)

RM: Yes.

AB: It paid off. I'll mention this now. One of my fellow interns, who was a young, white male...

RM: Where were you doing your internship?

AB: My internship? At American Army Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. That's at Fort Louis, Washington, American Army Hospital. See the arrangement was, I applied for an Army internship and I was accepted along with the number one student from my class; a fellow by the name of Claudius Sharpshi. We were the two people from Meharry who were selected by the Army for Army internships. Those internships were very highly sought after because of the difference in pay. See, to go back into the service as a First Lieutenant in the Medical Corps, I not only got my pay, but for my longevity of service, I had enough service in having gone to the war. At that time, my bring-home pay was astronomical-around seven hundred dollars a month. Compared with most of the guys in civilian internships, a hundred dollars a month plus subsistence was as much as they got. (7:32)

RM: You were doing well.

AB: So, I was very interested in getting this Army internship.

RM: What did you do with the cash?

AB: It was going into my savings account.

RM: Good for you.

AB: In regards to that, my greatest concern was about being that far away from home. If something should happen to my mother who was back here on the east coast in Lenoir County, about eighteen to twenty miles from here, I had to get home fast. The first thing I did once I got settled was to call the airlines and find out how much the fare would be back to North Carolina. At that time, it was around six hundred dollars, one way. That first check went into the bank and I told myself that it was untouchable. I was not going to spend beyond that because if something happens... (8:42)

RM: That's your ticket home.

AB: ...to my mother, I have to have my ticket home, so I can get there and get there fast. I'm glad that it didn't work out that I had to do that. That was just one anecdotal incident that happened.

RM: Surely. Well before we get to your prestigious internship in Washington, is there anything else about Meharry that you remember? Any teachers who had a particular influence on you or courses you enjoyed? (9:15)

AB: Well, at Meharry, there were teachers, teacher misfits, and then there were professors who had the interests of the students at heart. Now, one of the most cherished professors...Well, there's a couple. One was Dr. Matthew Walker, who was the Head of the Department of Surgery. He was a very good teacher, a very thorough individual, and he had the interests of the students at heart. He did not harass the students at all for making a mistake or an error in observation. When I say error in observation I mean, if there was something about the patient's case that should have been obvious based on the examination and the laboratory studies, and you possibly missed one or two essential elements, Dr. Walker did not get on your case. He would say, "Young man, remember that you have to consider everything as having an impact on your final diagnosis." A fatherly sort of thing. But then, there was another breed who took great pride or great pleasure in intimidating the students. If you made a small error, you were the biggest fool in the world, and you were totally unfit to even be considered to stay in Meharry; always holding a hammer over your head. Then there was that final class of people among the teachers, who had a devil of anI-don't-care attitude which says, "if you get it, you get it, and if you don't, it's all right with me, because I'm drawing my paycheck at the end of every month." I'm glad to say that there were people like Dr. Walker and Dr. West, who was in Biochemistry at that time. One of the greatest intimidators was the Physiology professor, Dr. Daniel T. Ross. Dr. Ross stood about six feet five. He weighed about three hundred pounds. He had the ability of being able to reach around his head with his right hand and scratch his cheek or his ear over on the left. When you saw that hand go up and come around behind, you knew he had some mischief in mind. He kept all of his students in awe and in fear all of the time. There was hardly a day that went by that he didn't remind the class that, "You know, for you to get..." That's from freshman time on. He was in Basic Science and Physiology. Most of the time until you got those two years behind you-where you do what you call, "Whew, I'm away from Dr. Ross now."-you are still in awe and in fear because he would say, "Well, in order for you to graduate from Meharry, you've got to impress me." And his being on the Committee for Admissions and sitting on that group that voted on retention on students and sending them packing, he carried an awful lot of influence. Fridays were the days when we would usually have an exam in Physiology. By Monday, your grades would be posted in...okay, you get your paper, and there would not be a mark or anything on those papers where you were wrong or where you were right. Nothing on the papers, but on the bulletin board, like it was on this tag board, there would be all of the student's names and everything. They'd have your grades posted and what was so awesome was that the grades would be spread out. We'd start looking at them and say, "Well, okay. Alexander on his Physiology exam-53, Best-47, Carter may be 49, and there would be some more scores under there. Before you could get settled in, and say, "I wonder how Dr. Ross is marking. Is he marking on the curve?''-You know, with the highest grade being A and so forth-you'd see down there, Wamer-97. I said, "Lord, have mercy." If 97 is the top of the curve, all the rest of us can't even qualify. All of those kind of things and... (15:40)

RM: How did you ever find out what you missed if he didn't ever mark the papers?

AB: Well, that was one of his techniques as he called it for keeping the fear of God in man and the students, so that they would dig harder. I remember very well. I got to the point that when I answered the question, I would quote an author, like our textbook was Best and Taylor. We had another reference book by Stalling. I would answer the question and I'd say, "According to Best and Taylor, so and so and so. According to Stalling, so and so and so. As these two references agree, there's some disagreement in A, B, or C between Best and Taylor and Stalling." Still, it looked like nothing that I could do was right or rewarding. Finally, I got up the nerve. I knew the assistant professor, Professor Bernice Scott. She was a lady-Dr. Ross' assistant-who would always come into lab on Saturday mornings. So, I got up early, and her office was right off the lab. See, if this was her office, the lab is maybe out there where my waiting room is. I went out and waited in the lab. When I heard her come in, I gave her five minutes to herself, knocked on the door, and then asked her if I could have a conference with her. Oh, she was just all flustered because several years earlier, there had been an episode where a student was angered at a professor for giving them a failing grade and the student shot the professor, killed him and ran out, and went back down through the Administration Building and went out on the front steps and shot himself. So, that episode of Dr. Ford and this student was fresh in the minds of people and so I'm sure Ms. Scott didn't know what in the world I wanted to talk about or what my reaction was going to be. So, she said, "Well, let me get settled in the office and I'll call." I said, "Okay, no problem." So, I went out. About five or ten more minutes, she carne and called me. She said, "All right. What can I do for you?" She was still very tense and very nervous. So, I tried to put her at ease by saying, "Professor Scott, I didn't come with any ax to grind against any of the department, and I didn't come to criticize anybody, but I carne in search of finding myself or seeing what it was that I hadn't done as opposed to what I should be doing." I reminded her that I had been in school, in college. I had been in military school, been down through the rigorous training, Military Officer's Training School, and in the post-war period, I went to the University of Florence to take some courses. I said, "I've never had any trouble making a grade. Now, I haven't always made the perfect grade, but whenever I do, I could identify the problem why I didn't. But now in this case, I'm a bit confused." So, she kind of settled down then, a little bit. I said, "I'm asking you to help me." So, she went on and pulled one of my papers out of her drawer. We were talking about the function of oxygen at the cellular level and we had the various types of anoxia. That's a depravation of oxygen and what it meant and this, that, and the other. So, when she looked at my paper and looked at the answer, she said, "Well, I can see your answer really was correct, but you didn't take it as far as you needed to. You should have gone one more step and taken it, not from external level where the oxygen utilized to the internal level, but to the cellular level across the cellular membrane." I said, "Okay, okay." We went on and had a discussion about that. I said, "Well, I appreciate this conference." I went on and exited the room. Well, we had about five more exams in this particular course, and the Lord above being my secret judge; before this conference, it looked like the name Best was mud and could do no right, but after that conference, some of my papers, which were not, in my judgement, nearly as complete as some of those 65s and 58s and stuff. After that conference, I didn't make anything under 90. The highest average scores ranged around 93 or 94, and I made a 99 on one of those exams. Nothing different, no different and it went on and ... (22:15)

RM: It sounds like you managed to get Dr. Ross's attention.

AB: Yeah. I got Dr. Scott's attention...

RM: Dr. Scott's attention.

AB: ...who was the assistant to Dr. Ross. Got her attention and later on, being the innovative individual that I hope I am. I still didn't understand why this was. So, I was very friendly with one of the girls who worked in the Registrar's and Personnel office and knowing that they had a policy that every month, they would send a more or less a profile sheet around. Every professor had to make a statement as to what they observed, what they thought of you, what they thought of me in this profile. I asked her, "Can you get my personnel folder out and let me keep over the weekend so I can study it?'' She said, "Yeah. That's no problem." So, she did. Over that weekend, I went through my profile sheet with a fine toothcomb and such comments as, "He's egotistic." Said another professor, "Thinks he knows more than he knows." Another one, "Needs the wind taken out of his sails." I couldn't for the life of me understand why or what I had done that would predict this kind of an attitude and I finally kind of figured out what I thought then and what I still think, was the demeanor that I tried to present. You're too young to know about the demeanor of Joe Louis, who was a famous boxer. Joe Louis was credited with having what they called a deadpan expression. If you hit him and it hurt, the same expression or if he hit you hard enough to hurt, same expression. What I didn't do, if I made a poor score, was complain about it. I just didn't go back making excuses. If I made a good score, I never went back. Some of my classmates, if they made a good score, they would go back to the professor, and be, "You really made things easy, very understandable, and blah, blah, blah." Loading up the professor... (25:38)

RM: Patting each other on the back.

AB: Yeah, yeah. I was never one to cry or complain or never one to brag...

RM: Celebrate.

AB: ...celebrate ifl thought I had done well So, I think that deadpan expression actually cost me some of all of these comments that were in my profile sheet. So, finally though, after that conference with Professor Scott, my Physiology problem vanished and I was able to move along with some kind of satisfaction and concentrate on what I thought was important. Of course, there was one other professor who was always very sensitive about any student. If a student, shall I say, were driving a car maybe. Some students there had parents who were pretty well off, shall we say, as poor folk go. It would be like a guy goes home for Christmas or something, dad just bought a new car, and dad lets him drive the new car back to Meharry. There was one professor who was very sensitive about any show or any display among the students that they were not suffering or not in awe of something and he had his people that he picked on. Eventually, I was able to live through all of that and able to weather that storm because this particular professor...I'll tell you this, then I'll go about Meharry. This particular professor, I knew I was his target, and I never would show any signs one way or the other. We had to have oral comprehensives. He was in medicine, cardiology, and internal medicine and they drew lots as to what professor you were going to have. The professors were lined at different posts. We had to draw lots. Well, I knew. I had the feeling that this doctor was waiting for me to come along to embarrass me, but I drew Dr. Nash and didn't draw Dr. Brothers. I sailed right through it with Dr. Nash. Everything was fine. This guy didn't get me. Later on, I discovered that he had asked one of his friends to do whatever he could to embarrass me. Now, this is picking and this is childish of a medical school faculty. A person who was a senior when I went to Meharry, who went on and was doing a surgical residence, was mingling between the faculty members and other folk. She overheard some things and without saying a word, she came back and told me, so I was able to compensate for that.

RM: This was a female medical student? (29:23)

AB: Yeah. This female medical student, she graduated. She was a senior the year that I went there. Of course, my class had six females out of a class of seventy-five and it was the largest number of females, anytime prior to that, of being in the class at Meharry. We had six.

RM: What year did you start at Meharry?

AB: I started in 1951. No. No. No. Let me back up. I went there in '47. I finished in 1951.

RM: I see.

AB: When we got at that final day, they would go down and they'd have a faculty meeting. The way they'd do it would be that they would call the roll. They'd call Alexander and nobody would have any comments against Alexander graduating. They'd check him off. Baker. Nobody say anything. "Anybody have any comments?" No. Check Baker off. Get down to Best. This faculty member, this doctor said...

RM: This is Brothers? (30:50)

AB: This is Brothers. He said, "Well, I'm not going to try to keep this man from graduating, but my understanding is that he has been accepted for an Army internship and I'm recommending that we notify the Surgeon General and ask that he delete his name from the list." So, somebody wanted to know why. "I just don't think that he is a fit representative of Meharry. I just don't think so." At that particular time it was about 5:00 and they got hung up on that discussion, so they adjourned the meeting to come back until tomorrow. Here again is where fate played in my hand. The lady who usually would take all notes was sick and her assistant would go in as the secretary to take all the notes. This assistant was the fiancee of my roommate, who was a class behind me at Meharry. So, she called me that night, 10:00, and she said, "Best, are you busy?" I said, "No. Nothing unusual." No. Actually about 6:00. She told me, said, "Be out to my house at 10:00, exactly 10." I said, "Okay." So, I went on out to her house and she told me, she said, "Now I don't know what you can do about It. I don't know whether you can change anything or not." But she told me that Dr. Brothers had recommended that suggestion that they delete my name from the list of Army interns because I was not a fit representative for Meharry. I was devastated. Devastation isn't the word. But I got... I went back to my room and I was trying... I had a conference with myself, "What should I do? Should I just take my pistol and go find this Brothers out and blow him away or what should I do?" And I'm just thumbing through papers. (33:28)

RM: Just out of curiosity, did you have a pistol?

AB: They allowed me to keep my Army .45 when I came out of the service. Now, I had my .45. So, but I was thumbing through, throwing away papers, getting right. I knew I was going to have to move. So, I ran across this pamphlet put out by the Surgeon General of the US Army. The article made mention of the fact that there were over 400 applications for Army interns, and it said 84 were chosen, then it listed the ones that were chosen. It went on and started out, in alphabetical order, my name was on there. Then my classmate, Sharpshi down near the end of the list was on there. So, what did Andrew do? Andrew said, "This is a good chance. Now, I have to get this document into the Dean's hand. Just have to." How was I going to do it? I schemed out over a...I got on the typewriter, using my HP system. You know what HP is, don't you? (34:56)

RM: Hunt and peck.

AB: Hunt and peck system. I typed up a letter from the US Surgeon General's office, O'Mack something, something, something Surgeon General to the Dean of the School of Meharry. It said, "Dear Dean. We have accepted one of your students for a position as an Army intern. We request that you please verify his age from your records." And I typed it up and signed it to Dean Bent. Well, down on the bottom of the sheet, there was some other space, so I went right down and typed in a reply from Dean Bent and prepared it for his signature and mailed it in one of these Airmail letters with all the different colors on the envelope... (36:09)

RM: Red and blue.

AB: Yeah. On the envelope, stamped it and went the next morning.. I knew Dean Bent would come in about 7:00 and go to his office. I was standing in the hall at his office when he came in and he said, "Good morning, Best. Good morning." I said, "Good morning Dean. How are you doing?" "What are you doing down here so early in the morning?" I said, "These people from the Army are trying to...They're worrying me to death. Of all the stupid things, they want you to verify my age." And I said, "So, I've taken the liberty to put your endorsement and that my age is XYZ.", whatever it was at that time. I said, "Will you sign this so I can take it, send it on off to them people." He said, "Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Let me see it." He didn't even read it. He just signed Michael J. Bent. So, I said, "You know what?" I said, "Here is something that doesn't say anything for me, but I think it says something Meharry." He said, "What's that? What's that?" "I see this article there that out of over 400 applications, 84 were chosen." I said, "Meharry got two men, in that group, me and Sharpshi." I said, "That's says something for a little school like Meharry to have two men in that selection." "You damn right. You damn right. What are you going to do with that?" "I just wanted to show it to you." "Hand it here." That's all I wanted. I went on back and when he went to that meeting-the meeting was first thing that morning-and when that meeting convened, I was informed by my plant secretary that when Dean Bent came in and before Dr. Brothers could speak, he was waving that thing, the pamphlet in front of him. He said, "Now Dr. Brothers, talking about this young man being a fit representative of Meharry. Meharry got two men in this group of 84 people and they had over 400 applications. And the Army screens folks thoroughly. I don't know what it is, but I think that it is a personal vendetta that Dr. Brothers has got. I'm just sure it is." And so Dr. Brothers' motion died from lack of a second. (38:52)

RM: Such shenanigans.

AB: Yeah. Shenanigans. Later on that year when I finished, the following year Dr. Brothers left Meharry to go for a... some further studies in cardiology up at Boston. I knew his address. The first report that came out rating the interns at Madigan, Sharpshi and I were in that first 20 percent. I was fifth, see, we had 36 interns and one-fifth of that 35. So, out of those first seven interns, both Sharpshi and I were in that group. (39:48)

RM: Oh, dear.

AB: So, when that slip came out, I took it on myself to write Dr. Brothers up in Massachusetts a friendly letter. I said, "I thought that you might be interested in knowing what your Meharrians or your Meharry students are doing in the context of this whole wide world of medicine." I said, "You'll see from this slip that both Sharpshi and I rated in the first 20 percent, that is in the first seven out of 36 interns, and certainly I think that Meharry had done a good job of preparing us for what the world requires. I wish you well and everything. I hope that you are doing nicely and enjoying your further studies and sincerely, former student." It did me more good than anything to get back in that very unobtrusive way with Dr. Brothers. He didn't know that I knew all of the stuff behind what he did. But anyhow, that got behind us, so we lived on. (41:10)

RM: What kind of internship were you doing out in...?

AB: I rotated internship in all ... through all of the services; OBGYN, anesthesiology, general medicine, and general surgery. I didn't get a chance to do much general surgery, but the intern in that.... See they got all of these shortages. So, the intern is a doctor. Mostly, he gets to assist and to see.

RM: And there were 36 of you there, all doing the same kind of rotating internship? (41:52)

AB: Right. It was a big hospital. While I'm at Madigan, I might throw in one incidence that happened on the segregation, but we might end up putting it in my discriminatory experiences. Anyway, in the GYN clinic, when I rotated through there, there was a lady, maybe 75 years old who came to the clinic. They had the clinic lined up, sheets between what they called patient booths. So, when I went in her booth, and she said, "I want a doctor." I said, "Well, I'm Lieutenant Best and I am a doctor." She said, "I want one of my own kind." I said, "Well, I'm American. Aren't you?" Yet, totally unperturbed, she said, "One of my color." I said, "Oh, whoa. Color bothers you." So, she started saying, "My son is...I'm from Georgia. My son is this, that, and the other." I said, "Well, that's all right. That's all right." So, I went out and told the head nurse, who was a Major in the service, "This lady says she wants a doctor, one of her own." She first said nationality. Now that's when I told her, "I'm American, aren't you?" I said, "One of her own color. I can't do much about that." So, the nurse went in to see her and try to reason with her, and she was very, very belligerent. The nurse said, "Well, I'm going to send the Colonel in to see you, Lieutenant Colonel Harp, head of the clinic." I went on to the next cubicle, but you know my ears have a tendency to listen to what's going on over... So, Colonel Harp walked in and told her, he said, "Well, look, we do not have any discrimination in this hospital and I'm going to give you a minute or two to make up your mind. Either Dr. Best sees you or you don't get any service at alL You'll just have to go home." So, she grumbled and griped. Finally, she told them, "Well, if that's what I got to do, okay." So, I went in that second time and she was very hostile and I said, "Well, I have to do a pelvic examination and I'll be as easy as I can. It's not going to be very comfortable now, but relax and I'll do the best that I can and make it as comfortable as possible." So, I went on and did it. She had a small lesion up on her cervix and (45:23)(Tape Ended Side 1) Side 2 Begins

RM: Tape is turned over now. You were telling us about the lady who had a positive Pap smear.

AB: After being notified as to what was going on, she came back and when the nurse went in, Major McClastin, she said, "If it's all right with you, I'd like to have the same doctor who was with me before." Now that was a great thing. So, Major told her very nicely said, "Yes. You might. I think so. I think I can arrange that." So, I went in to see her, and she had a different attitude all together. The Pap smear was thought to recognize an early lesion, so she went to surgery. Some time later, I got a note from this lady, thanking me for being as kind as I was and apologizing for her own behavior. I just took it in stride and let it go. It was one of the good outcomes of a demonstration where hostility, because of segregation and discrimination turned out to be good in terms of Jetting that lady know that for one thing this color is permanent-it doesn't rub off and that there are other people of my color. Because she thought she had a difference in nationality and color, the people of this color and this nationality don't have to be cruel and don't have to go into the cess pool of irresponsible reaction just because somebody else reacts. One final note as how to another case turned out, I was given the assignment to run the Pediatric Preschool Clinic Examination. There was a young man doing his extemship in the Army, who was a senior in medical school from Illinois, Ohio State, somewhere, but we stayed about four miles away from this clinic, so we rode together. So, there was a little girl at six who was probably in for her preschool exam. Her mother and them lived way up on the Alaskan border of the state, and she came in. She had not been used to seeing people of color. So, the little girl looked up, out of the clear blue sky right in a clinic full of people, she said, "Mommy, mommy. He needs a bath. He needs a bath." (

RM: Ohdear. (3:38)

AB: And so everybody was just froze, because they didn't know what I was going to respond or what my reaction was going to be. So, I said, "No baby, I just have a suntan." That broke the spell. Everybody kind of relaxed again. And that went on off. Then her little five-year old brother was along clutching the mother's skirt tail. Oh, everybody had forgotten the first incident. He started to say, "Mommy, me want a suntan. Me want a suntan." The little girl looked around and she looked again and she said, "No, mommy. He don't want no suntan." We had a big laugh off of it. But my young white intern, extern really, because he was a senior in medical school, he said, "You know, I was biting nails because I didn't know how you were going to handle that." I said, "Well, there's no need for me to make a mountain out of what turned out to be a mole hilL" Because the first thing that my young assistant could see was that I was going to react violently in some way and either walk out, tum the clinic out, or say something that would just destroy everything. He said, "I don't know how you came through it, but that suntan answer is the best I have ever heard." So, that turned out to be one of the joyous occasions where I think I handled discrimination in a very, very effective manner and in a manner that was what should have been called for. So much for the story of Meharry and Madigan and getting back ... Now, where are we going now Ruth? (5:50)

RM: Well, the next thing would be after your one-year internship...

AB: Yeah.

RM: ...where did you go?

AB: After I finished my one-year internship, I came back on assignment. You remember being in the service? I was obligated, by part of the contract; I would do two years of service in the Army. So, I reassigned at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, which was at my request. It was good. I had a very uneventful stay at Fort Bragg, working in the clinics, on the services, and running the infirmaries. It was real good and I was... at, near the end, I came back to Fort Bragg in July of '52 and I stayed there until December of '53. They let me out a few days early, with time served and my accumulation of off time. (7:19)

RM: You took care of soldiers during that period?

AB: Yeah. I took care of soldiers and soldiers' families. There were some civilians. We took care of soldiers and their families at Fort Bragg. As I was coming to the end of my service there, I decided to leave the service to go into private practice. I could have reapplied for another tour of duty. We called it re-up, but I had no interest in that. So, I wanted to get out and hit the ground where I would be able to serve people. It was during December of '53, that I did some surveying, very serious, as to where I might start my own private practice. Among the sites I considered was Ahoskie or maybe Winton, Greenville, and there was some pressure for me to come back to Kinston, my hometown. I decided on Greenville. In the meantime, while I was looking around, I was on my way to Ahoskie and Winton to look for a possible place. Some local citizens had invited me and said, "Come and see what we have to offer." (8:58)

RM: Who were the people? Do you remember the physician in Ahoskie at the time?

AB: The physician in Ahoskie was Joseph D. Weaver. Of course, there was nobody in Winton and a college classmate; George Felton was in Winton. He was the main person wanting me to come to that area and to look around. He mentioned the fact that we knew that Dr. Weaver was in Ahoskie, but there were some other towns around like Fitzburough, Edenton, and those places that my former roommate, Mr. Felton, was interesting in bringing me. So, I was just accepting his invitation to come down for a weekend to look the situation over as a fact finding situation.

RM: Now, Mr. Felton was your roommate from...? (9:50)

AB: The college at A&T. We were very close so, he was trying to get me to come and settle in that area, at least to look around. As I was, it was on a Saturday morning. I went down 13, past through Windsor on my way to Ahoskie. That's when I saw this car with all four wheels up in the air. I looked a little closer. It was a highway patrolman, and he had had an accident. He was pinned in and as I stopped, there was another car coming from the opposite direction, then people started stopping and gathering around. The situation was that this patrolman was inside and that he was living but some blankets, debris, and stuff were in the car almost suffocating him. He couldn't move and couldn't get it off his own face, so we broke glass and got in and moved the stuff so he could breathe. Then, I found out that he had a compound fracture of the right femur. A compound fracture, the bone was broken, but it was sticking through the skin. You could see the bone. The people gathered around and helped us. We pulled him out and we fashioned-used that blanket and some shrubs and trees limb to fashion a carryall to stabilize him, and I happened to have some units of morphine sulfate in my bag, so I gave him a unit of morphine to ease his pain. I got the situation stabilized and had to be very careful in moving that leg to get that bone back inside the flesh, so we kept it strapped down. Then, somebody had called the ambulance and they came. We got in to take him to the hospital and he was on the way. Then, I got back in my car. Naturally, it would have been snowing and there was ice and snow and all of the banks were muddy. I got my hands muddy and dirty. So, I stopped at this service station in Ahoskie, walked in, and ordered a pack of chewing gum and a Coca-Cola. Then I asked a few men if they knew where I could wash my hands. Their answer was, "No. We don't have anywhere for niggers to wash their hands." My impulse was to tell them that, "I got these hands dirty saving the life of one of your white folks." I just turned around. He had already opened the soda. I just turned around, left the soda and the gum right on the counter, and got in my car. I was going to buy some gas, too. I got in my car and went on to Winton. I told my roommate about the experience, and he started shaking his head. Now, I didn't give my name to anybody, but two weeks later, I got a letter from the Commander of the Highway Patrol from Raleigh thanking me for being the Good Samaritan to stop and give one of his patrolman first aid. But that experience of segregation and discrimination to me was just mind boggling. To think that in America...you know. Mind you, I had been through the war and had been wounded twice fighting for this country. Then to come home, and I can't even wash my hands. The hands that got dirty...that's mind-boggling.(14:36)

RM: Saving somebody's life...

AB: Mind-boggling.

RM: Well, Dr. Best, thank-you for sharing the stories with us today. It's been an hour.

AB: Okay.

RM: Should we let your vocal cords rest?

AB: Well, I think so and maybe we might go a little bit longer if time permits.

RM: We'll take up again on the 17th.

AB: Take up again on the 17th.

RM: Thank-you so much.

AB: You're quite welcome. (15:01)