On Dec. 10, 1933, Mayor Bernard F. Dickmann laid the cornerstone for the Homer G. Phillips Hospital for Colored, at 2601 Whittier Street. The hospital was named for an attorney
While segregation was still casting its ugly shadow over the U.S., the Homer G. Phillips Hospital was providing top-notch medical care to African Americans and training some of the world s best Black doctors and nurses.
While segregation was still casting its ugly shadow over the U.S., the Homer G. Phillips Hospital was providing top-notch medical care to African Americans and training some of the world s best Black doctors and nurses.
Among those who spoke briefly was Mrs. Homer G. Phillips, widow of a Black lawyer who had campaigned tirelessly in 1923 to win the original bond issue. Phillips had been shot to death in 1931 while waiting for a streetcar on Delmar Boulevard. Two teens, including the son of a disgruntled client, were acquitted of his murder. The Board of Aldermen voted to name the new hospital in his memory.
Aided by federal Depression-fighting money, the $3.1 million hospital opened in 1937. The city closed old No. 2, at 2945 Lawton Avenue, and moved patients and the nursing school to Homer G. The new, seven-story hospital was a towering symbol of pride for Blacks in St. Louis.