A retired Milligan University professor has completed work on a book that he hopes will call attention to an important figure in Johnson Cityâs development as a regional hub for education, faith and medicine: Dr. Hezekiah B. Hankal.
âHezekiah Hankal took it upon himself to uplift our communityâs African Americans during the era when Jim Crow laws severely restricted their lives and their opportunities to get ahead in the world,â Donald Shaffer said recently. âDr. Hankal had never been a slave. But when freedom came for the slaves, he soon married one, and he devoted the rest of his life to serving the physical and mental and spiritual needs of his fellow African Americans. He identified with them and strove to empower them to prosper to the extent possible in the face of societyâs array of measures to hold them down.â
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