100 Years Ago This Week: June 16-23

From The Indianapolis Star, Sunday, June 17: The sixteen City Hospital interns who walked out Friday at midnight in protest over the arrival of Dr. William W. Gibbs, an African American, to begin his internship have returned to their wards. The interns convinced the hospital board that the hospital staff could not care for the 300 patients without them, and Gibbs was “fired,” or asked to resign, by the board in order to prevent a disruption of service at the hospital. Gibbs recently completed his medical studies at the Indiana College of Medicine. He had passed the health board examination and won his appointment because he was the sixth highest among those competing for an internship. He had agreed to take his meals with the “colored help” at the hospital and to confine his medical work only to “colored patients.”