A fight for equal health care drew doctor to civil rights movement

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Civil rights pioneer William G. Anderson recalls how a disparity in health care led to a friendship with Martin Luther King Jr. and helped eventually end segregation.

The first African-American president of the American Osteopathic Association, he spoke Monday at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Terrace Heights.

He recounted how in the late 1950s there was only one hospital in Albany, Ga., where he started his practice after finishing medical school -- and it didn't accept black doctors.

And black patients had to wait until all white patients were treated before getting medical attention, he said.

"There was no premium on the lives of blacks, especially in the South," the tall, narrow 81-year-old said in an interview before his speech. "They were expendable."

Many blacks couldn't afford medical attention at white hospitals or even routine checkups, he said.

They became his patients.

He mostly treated them at their homes, which often lacked running water and electricity. He delivered many babies under the beams of his car's headlights.

"I would position the patient so that I could shine the headlights through a window onto the bed," he recalled.

Incidents like that attracted him to a student-led push to get blacks registered to vote. That's when his life of medicine converged with a growing civil rights movement.

He began meeting with other black leaders to talk about ways to combat segregation, and eventually he became president of what became known as the Albany Movement.

They met at homes and in churches. And they marched for months for basic civil rights in rallies that often ended with hundreds going to jail. Once, Anderson recalled, he was among 1,200 jailed.

"I realized that I got all these people into jail, now how am I going to get them out?" he said. "I realized, 'I'm in over my head.' "

That's when he called on King, who graduated from high school with his wife's brother.

King arrived in Albany in December 1961, and marches continued.

But Anderson recalls it was a petition he took to the Albany City Council calling for desegregation that sent shock waves through the community.

A newspaper article about the petition listed Anderson's address and telephone number. He was harassed, received threats and had rocks thrown through his windows.

Buses, libraries, and other public services were shut down as well as businesses, he recalled.

"Racism is a terrible thing," he said. "They would rather jeopardize their business rather than desegregate."

But when the public services finally opened again, they were open to everyone, he recalled.

Looking back on a time when blacks were excluded from public offices and professional jobs, he said: "I'm happy to say that all that has changed."