An Interview With Samuel U. Rodgers

Samuel U. Rodgers was chosen for the project as a representative of the African American community and as a physician concerned with health care for the poor in Kansas City, Missouri. He was born in Alabama, son of a physician, and died in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 19, 1999. Dr. Rodgers started the Wayne Miner Health Clinic which was later named the Samuel U. Rodgers Community Health Center in his honor. According to his obituary "he came to Kansas City to intern at General Hospital Number Two--the black facility in what was then a segregated health-care system. He was one of the first African American doctors to acquire a speciality [obstetrics], and helped begin Kansas City's first all-black group medical practice in 1950" (The Kansas City Star, December 21, 1999, A1:6,). Interviewer: Genevieve Robinson; recorded August 2 and August 8, 1988.