VAntage Point
VHA commemorates Black History Month
A look at the many “firsts” in Veterans health history
NATIONAL HOME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS, THE FIRST TO PROVIDE DOMICILIARY AND MEDICAL CARE TO BLACK VETERANS
VHA’s first hospitals opened under its predecessor, the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The hospitals were racially integrated from the very beginning. The first African American Veterans, who served with the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, were admitted to the Central Branch (now Dayton VAMC) in Ohio in March 1867.
Dr. Howard Kenney, 1962
It was the first government-civilian institution to admit the nation’s first African American Veterans of the Union Army.