Robert F. Boyd

Robert Fulton Boyd (1855-1912) was an American physician and dentist who was the first president of the National Medical Association. Boyd and other African-American physicians started the National Medical Association because, during the Jim Crow era, the southern medical societies, medical facilities, and medical schools were racially segregated by state laws. He was born into slavery in Giles, Tennessee in July 1855, and gained his medical degree in 1882 and dental degree in 1887. In 1891, he gained a masters of arts degree. He was appointed professor of gynecology and clinical medicine at Meharry Medical College in 1893.