At
the time of World War I, health care for black Detroiters
was inferior to that available for whites. African American
physicians could not join the staffs of Detroit's white hospitals.
On May 20, 1918, thirty black doctors, members of the Allied
Medical Society (now the Detroit Medical Society) incorporated
Dunbar Hospital, the city's first non-profit community hospital
for the Afican American population. It also housed the first
black nursing school in Detroit.