The Burgess Holley House
Alonzo Potter Burgess Holley, M.D., Class of 1888 (1865-1932)
Advisory Dean: Blossom Samuels, M.D.
House Color - Green
In 1888, Alonzo Potter Burgess Holley, a Haitian emigre and a graduate of Cambridge, became the first black student to graduate from New York Medical College (NYMC).
After the U.S. Civil War, the need for better health care for African American’s became obvious, as did the shortage of physicians to provide that service. Dr. Potter Burgess Holley was a pioneer in the medical field. The year after he graduated from NYMC he was appointed by the Haitian government as a consul to the Bahamas, where he remained for 12 years.
In addition, he also wrote two books which are still available today: The problems of our race: Our duties and responsibilities and God and the Negro, synopsis of God and the Negro; or the biblical record of the race of Ham.