The First Black Doctor in Jacksonville was an HBCU GRAD

Alexander H Darnes was the first black doctor in Jacksonville, Florida. He was born a slave,

Darnes earned his undergraduate degree at Lincoln University of PA. He received his medical degree from Howard University College of Medicine in 1880,

After graduation, Darnes settled in Jacksonville and set up a private medical practice. He was the first black physician in the city and the second in the state. He built a thriving practice operating out of his home.

Darnes and fellow Howard College of Medicine grad Dr Lemuel W Livingston, helped the city of Jacksonville’s residents during the smallpox and yellow fever epidemics that swept the south in 1887.

Darnes became a mentor to James Weldon Johnson who went on to write and compose “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” known as the negro national anthem.

Darnes passed in 1895. Over 3,000 people attended his funeral, more than any other funeral ever held in Jacksonville up to that time.

He has a statue in St Augustine. It was the first public statue erected in the nation’s oldest city to honor a black man.