1) #BlackHistoryMonth Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller

In 1904 Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller,PhD was in Munich Germany, working alongside Dr. Alois Alzheimer. Dr.Fuller was charged with performing pathologies of the brain. The discrimination of the times prohibited him from working on living patients so he was limited to performing autopsies. However, that work gave him unparalleled expertise observing brain disorders. He published his findings in several North American medical journals as early as 1911.

I had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Fuller’s grandson, Dr. John Fuller for my documentary In Our Right Mind. Dr. Fuller grew up in his grandparent’s Massachusetts home- the family is a an encyclopedia of Black history.

Not only was Solomon Carter Fuller America’s first Black psychiatrist but his wife, acclaimed Philadelphia artist Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, was a protégée of Auguste Rodin who gained fame in Paris before returning to the US as America’s first black woman sculptor.