The Surgeon of Truth: Dr. James McCune Smith

A trailblazing physician, a brilliant scientist, and a fiercely radical revolutionary—Dr. James McCune Smith (1813–1865) was the most important Black intellectual you've never heard of. Born free in New York, Smith shattered racial barriers by earning his medical degree in Scotland, becoming the first African American doctor. Returning home, he refused to confine himself to medicine, instead waging a decades-long intellectual war against American racism. Through his groundbreaking work in statistics, Smith systematically proved the biological equality of the Black race, demolishing the fraudulent pseudo-science that underpinned slavery. He was Frederick Douglass's closest intellectual partner, the tireless organizer who resisted the Fugitive Slave Law, and the community leader whose clinic became a sanctuary in the fight for abolition. But his extraordinary achievements—and the painful story of his family—were deliberately erased by the forces of prejudice. This comprehensive biography finally restores Smith to his rightful place as an essential figure in American history, revealing the man whose pen, scalpel, and uncompromising intellect defined the struggle for civil rights a generation before the Civil War. Discover the indispensable story of the man who taught Black America how to fight injustice with facts. Approx.145 pages, 27200 word count