Collection of material on the history of the Homer G. Phillips Hospital and School of Nursing. Includes information on activism and social groups concerned with the preservation of the hospital and the hopital's legacy within the Black community in St. Louis and the surrounding area.
Homer G. Phillips was an influential lawyer and civil rights activist from Sedalia, Missouri. He attended Howard University Law School in Washington, DC, and later established a successful law practice in St. Louis.
In 1919, Phillips co-founded the Civil Liberties League, an African American political organization representing Black interests in the Progressive wing of the Republican party. In the early 1920s, he co-founded the St. Louis Negro Bar Association, later known as the Mound City Bar Association. He defended many African Americans in criminal cases following the 1917 race riots in East St. Louis, and in 1922, Phillips led the demand for a hospital for the Black community. His efforts led to the construction of Homer G. Phillips Hospital and School for Nursing, which opened several years after his death. The hospital served Black residents and trained Black medical professionals until the early 1980s.
When the City of St. Louis enacted a segregation ordinance in 1916, Phillips and the local branch of the NAACP filed for a temporary injunction on the ordinance. US District Judge David Dyer granted the injunction until Buchanan v. Warley could be the US Supreme Court. The Buchanan v. Warley decision set the precedent that ordinances that prohibited the sale or purchase of properties by Blacks in white-majority neighborhoods violated Fourteenth Amendment protections.
Phillips was attacked and killed by several men with guns while waiting for a streetcar on June 18, 1931. The motive behind his assassination remains unknown.
Homer G. Phillips Hospital and School of Nursing was a historic institution in St. Louis that served the African American community from 1937 to 1979. It was a fully equipped hospital and training facility for Black doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals during a time when opportunities for African Americans in these fields were limited. The hospital, named after the lawyer who championed its creation, was a vital part of the Ville neighborhood and a source of pride for the Black community.
Restored sections of the former hospital now serves as a neighborhood health care center and a residential care facility for older adults.
Homer G. Phillips Hospital Emergency Room. Dr. R. C. Haskell on left with glasses. Haksell was the first manager of the City Hospital No. 2 before Homer G. Phillips opened.
Horizontal, black and white portrait showing an African American man wearing a lab coat and sitting at a desk. A variety of books and papers cover the top of the desk.
Dr. J. Owen Blache (1900-1964) attended medical school at Howard University and, following an internship, was trained as a pathologist at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. After a stint in the army from 1942-45, he returned to Homer G. Phillips where he was made Director of Pathology, a position he held for the rest of his career.
Horizontal, black and white group portrait showing doctors, nurses, and other staff at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. The group of African Americans is posed on the steps of a grand building, presumably the steps of the hospital. Several of the men are wearing lab coats, and several of the women are wearing nurse's uniforms.
