[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]Regular readers know I am an aggressive advocate of redefining the skewed cultural mores of the Black community.
We have allowed ourselves to be inaccurately defined by the corporate media as a people who are shallow, frivolous, anti-intellectual, only interested in strutting around like peacocks as we denigrate the womb of our culture. This profile doesn’t only have a negative effect on every Black person under evaluation for any kind of upward mobility. It sends the message to Black youth they have a cultural obligation to be idiots, that the pursuit of knowledge is “un-Black,” thus, not cool.
The media also sends the message to Black youth that their cultural niche in society is limited to becoming an athlete or an entertainer. Black people excel in these areas because for much of our African American history, those were the only areas in which we were allowed to participate.
As any cognitive researcher can attest, creativity is a primary indicator of overall intelligence. The same creativity that goes into the making of a Charlie Parker, Ray Charles or Aretha Franklin, can easily be transferred to medical research, physics, or cosmology.
In that regard, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Richard Allen Williams. Dr. Williams was born and raised in Wilmington, DE. Upon graduating from Howard High School at the top of his class with a 4.0 grade-point average, he was awarded a full scholarship to Harvard University. Graduating with honors, he was the school’s first African American from Delaware.
Avalanche of Honors and Achievements
Dr. Williams received his M.D. from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, and performed his internship at the U.C. San Francisco Medical Center. He did his internal medicine residency at County-USC, and his cardiology fellowship at UCLA Medical Center and Brigham Hospital, Boston.
He was an instructor in cardiology at Harvard Medical School, where he founded and directed the Central Recruitment Council of Boston Hospitals, which recruited significant numbers of Black medical trainees to Boston hospitals for the first time in their history. For three years he was the initial Asst. Medical Director at the King Hospital in Watts. He was charged with the responsibility of opening the hospital.
While here, he collaborated with Dr. David Satcher on a proposal that resulted in a $2.5 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health to establish the King-Drew Sickle Cell Center, of which he became the Director. Later he accepted the position of Chief of the Heart Station and Coronary Care Unit at the West Los Angeles VA Hospital, eventually becoming head of cardiology. He was also the first Black full professor in the history of the Dept. of Medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine. His resume continues for an additional three pages of further accomplishments.
His Other Career
We should not make the mistake of thinking that Dr. Williams remains cocooned in an ivory tower.
Leader of the jazz group Raw Sugar, Rich is a formidable trumpet player who can hang with the best in the business. And he has. He was not only Miles Davis's doctor, he was mentored on trumpet by the late Clifford Brown. The doctor has played all over the world with jazz greats such as Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lou Donaldson, Herman Riley, Hubert Laws, and many others. He appeared at t Birdland, New York's cultural monument dedicated to the incomparable Charles (Yardbird) Parker.
President Obama is not the anomaly many would have us believe. The Black community is brimming over with creative brilliance.
We are unforgivably remiss in not making it clear to our young people and the world.
You can hear Dr. Williams perform on Sunday, between 2 and 5, at the Charles R. Drew Medical Society's “60 Years of Service Celebration” at the Wilshire Ebell, 743 S. Lucerne Blvd. Dr. Williams will be appearing with his group Raw Sugar, with regular members Justo Almario on tenor sax and flute, Harold Land Jr. on piano, Henry (Skipper) Franklin on bass, and Fritz Wise on drums. The group will also feature Eloise Laws. Admission is $60. RSVP: 310.739.1793.
Mr. Wattree may be contacted at wattree.blogspot.com or Ewattree@Gmail.com
Religious bigotry: It’s not that I hate everyone who doesn’t look, think, and act like me – it’s just that God does
