"OUR RICH BLACK HERITAGE" : MONROE ALPHEUS MAJORS

Recently, I heard a story about a school teacher who wanted to emphasize a point about “VOTING” to her students. However, instead of browbeating them, she simply wrote a question on the chalkboard. The question she wrote was,”What’s the difference between people who can’t “Vote” and people who don’t “Vote?” Well, that one story just about sums up the “October 2023 Election” results in Louisiana! Now, back to this week’s Black Pioneer. Monroe Alpheus Majors was born on October 12, 1864, in Waco, Texas. His parents were Andrew Jackson Majors and Jane Barringer Majors. After his family moved to Austin, Texas, he attended several of the Freedmen’s Bureau schools. schools. Also, he attended West Texas College, Tillotson Normal and Collegiate Institute,and Central Tennessee College, before enrolling in Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1886, Monroe graduated from medical school and moved to Calvert, Texas to begin practicing medicine. In 1889, he moved to Los Angeles, California, becoming a lecturer at the Los Angeles Medical College. Additionally, Monroe was the first Negro to ever pass the California Board of Medical Examination. Once he married his wife, Georgia A Green, the couple decided to move back to Waco, Texas in 1890. In Waco, Monroe practiced medicine, edited a local newspaper, the Texas Searchlight, and taught at Paul Quinn College. Although he was already involved in other activities, Monroe Felt a need to contribute to the civil rights cause. Through the newspaper, he spoke out against the lynching that was prevalent throughout Texas. Therefore,he received death threats that forced him to move to Chicago in 1901. A list of his achievements & accomplishments included: being one of the first Negroes to become licensed to practice medicine in the state of Texas, he was the first Negro to ever pass the California Board of Medical Examination, he established a medical association for Black physicians who were not allowed entry into the American Medical Association, he wrote a noted book of biographies of Negro women which was published in 1893, he served as editor of a newspaper called the Chicago Conservator from 1908 - 1910, and he opened the first black-owned drugstore in the American Southwest! Finally, after achieving great things in his lifetime, he died in Los Angeles, California, in 1933, at the ripe age of 96.