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Doc. C. Bassett Brown |
Class of 1941 - St. Johns Irish
Played
on State Champion teams at St. Johns
First black basketball player at Western Michigan University
Won at Madison Square Garden
High
School
Football - 1939, 40, 41
Basketball - 1939, 40, 41
Track - 1939, 40, 41
Assistant Boys Basketball Coach at LMC 90-92
College- Western Michigan University
Career Highlights - 26 pts. vs. Valparaiso
After
High School & College
92nd
Infantry, 5th Army - Basketball Champions 1945 in Italy
1944 he was transferred into the first Black Combat Unit (the 92nd
Infantry Division) and served in Italy - won a Bronze Star and Oak Leaf Cluster
for Bravery.
1948 Dr. Brown played 6 games with the Harlem Globetrotters at the end of
the college basketball season, as a replacement for players who were sick.
1948 Dr. Brown was the first Polemarch of Gamma Beta Chapter of Kappa Alpha PSI
at Western Michigan University.
1948 attended Fisk University in Graduate School, for one year he traveled all
over the south playing basketball against other major black college teams.
1949 Admitted to Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry - was President of
his class and President of Pre-Alumni Council of the Schools of Dentistry,
Medicine, Nursing and Graduate Schools.
1953 Graduated, became the first black to do a one year internship in Maxillo-Facial
Surgery at Metro Hospital in New York City.
1955 Graduated from Northwestern University School of Maxillo-Facial Surgery
with a MSD Degree – first black to do so. Spent the next two years as a
Resident in Maxillo-Facial Surgery at Cook County Hospital in Chicago - first
black to do so.
Was an Anesthetist at night at a trauma hospital in Chicago when he was a
resident.
Remained Chief of the Department of Anesthesia and Senior member of the Oral
Maxillo-Facial Staff.
Opened a modern Outpatient Oral and Maxillo-Facial clinic in Benton Harbor and
practiced for 33 years.
In 1960, he was the 5th Afro-American to be certified as a Diplomat
of the American Board of Oral and Maxillo-Facial Surgery in the United States,
the first to practice in Illinois & Michigan.
Life member of NAACP, Chairperson of the Education Committee. Fought for
integrated and equal education in the 60’s & 70’s.
In 1970 Meharry Medical College designated Dr. C Bassett Brown as a
Distinguished Alumni of the Year, in 1992 Western Michigan University also
awarded him the same designation.