Eugene Percy Roberts papers

1912-1917

Eugene Percy Roberts (1868-1953) was the first African American to achieve the following: receive a degree in medicine in New York City; serve as a member of the New York City Board of Education from 1917-1922; and become a trustee of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Roberts graduated from Lincoln University in 1887, and from New York Homeopathic Medical in Flower Hospital, now New York Medical College, in 1894. Also in 1894, he was appointed a medical inspector of the New York City Health Department. He was a charter member of the National Urban League, a founder of St. James Presbyterian Church, and a chairman of the Harlem Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association in New York City. The Eugene Percy Roberts collection consists primarily of congratulatory letters to Roberts on his appointment to the Board of Education for a five-year term commencing in 1917. Letter writers include J. Weldon Johnson of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and J. Rosamund Johnson, music teacher. There are also two letters from Booker T. Washington concerning a scholarship fund at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (1915), and a letter from Robert R. Moton, principal of Tuskegee congratulating Roberts on his election to the Board of Trustees of Lincoln University. Another letter from Jesse E. Moreland relates to Roberts's membership fee in the Association for the Study of Negro Life and Literature.