Race and Education

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Dr. Robert Slawson and his wife, Mavis, attended a lecture in 2004 about African-American physicians in the Civil War. That experience prompted the retired oncologist to write a book dedicated to black men and women who practiced medicine during the war.

Slawson, a volunteer at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, had just finished a research project on medical education in the United States. In it, the principal historians said that African-Americans were not included in formal medical education until after the Civil War.