Hello, everyone. I am the director of Public Programs and events. Im happy today, thrilled to introduce doctor sullivan who is im going to have to read because his long list of things. Hes a policy leader and Minority Health advocate and author and educator and serves as secretary of the u. S. Department of health and Human Services under george bush and was the founding dean of the school of medicine and today he will be discussing his recent memoir breaking ground by life in medicine. So, welcome. We are very happy to have you. [applause] this is a bit different because often i do fiction books, occasionally memoirs. But in your story theres a lot to talk about and i wanted to just begin it is a hard thing to say to somebody can use use enough size your life and all of two sentences but i want to just and some very brief way tell the audience what the book covers, then i will delve in and we will start going into the specifics and then build from there. Guest thanks very much. Its a great pleasure to be here with you and to be here at the Public Library so thank you very much. I guess what i would say my autobiography tells the strand of my life story because i was born during the depression. My father was a Life Insurance salesman, was the second of two boys in atlanta. My father left atlanta and went to southwest georgia and georgia beyond about my father was a social activist because this was during the legally enforced segregation. In southwest georgia in those years it wasnt a very happy place. My father founded the first chapter of the naacp. He filed suit against the county to overturn the primary because they couldnt participate in voting at this time. He also sought the annual celebration january 1 of every year to celebrate their emancipation by lincoln. My father was a lifelong republican who identified himself with Abraham Lincoln said he was quite a social activist. My mother was a schoolteacher and because of my fathers activism to try to get the vote improving the economy of the retaliation was my mother never got a job teaching schools in the county. So, in that environment, fortunately for my brother who is a year and a half older, my brother went to savanna to live with relatives for the year to attend school because the schools in georgia were not very good. We got to hand me downs. We from the school. When they got new books, we got their books. They had a band and we didnt have a band or instruments. My father was somebody that worked to address that is because he was serving in the community, the whites couldnt really bother. My mother in the 20 years they lived there from 1937 to 1957, taught in schools and other counties around their and interestingly enough, as i was mentioning earlier, she taught in some schools built by julius so for those that have seen the movie, some of the schools my mother taught him. I was stimulated by the one position in southwest georgia at that time doctor joseph griffin. Host you met him when you were five and at that point you made a decision you are going to be a doctor because he was so miraculous, magic happened and he could actually cure people. I didnt want to cut you off but my first question was about the three men in your life. Its freezing. As anyone as cool as i am . Please realize i apologize. I just i dont want you to jump ahead of the three men that seemed to be the most influential in your life where your father who was this amazing activist, this doctor who you met. I want to know if you saw him again once he somebody that you checked in with overtime and said and told him about your interest in medicine and then third was benjamin maze who was the dean of morehouse who was also influential in your life so these three men am i right or that they are sort of the three pillars obviously your mother was influential but these were the three men that really helped guide you at the time it was a difficult time to decide to be a doctor, to decide to move as you did so far ahead in the time of segregation in the south. So the example was your father in many ways because regardless of what the environment was, he moved forward. Guest yes. The statement that my father and my mother gave to me at the time was this wasnt the right system. We were going to do everything we can to change it and we expect you to do the same. There were no excuses. We expected to excel in schools and we would treat our elders with respect so there were many things we learned from our parents. And doctor griffin was someone who as i mentioned because he has magical powers other people didnt have and i wanted to be like him. I was interested in science and i loved birds and trees and bleachers and all that but he was the personification of someone who really was an expression of learning and as a service to the community because thats what my father and my mother were all about. So that was the influenzae and then when i went on to Morehouse College, he personified all those things and i am frankly all the students at the college wanted to be like doctor mays because he was elegant, he was in speech and he had great integrity, he was a sought after speaker around the country, he was always traveling that he would speak to the students every Tuesday Morning and he would bring another speakers to serve as role models. So the message that he was giving us was also you can beat the system. You must change the system. We need to do it by the democratic process in protest bringing complaints to the public etc. Then the students were expected to do that and of course the most famous graduates were Martin Luther king jr. Who finished six years prior to to the time i finished. Did you feel did you feel you needed to make change or that you were working in the system to get what you needed to come out with in order to make the change . Is it that you were working towards becoming a doctor in order so that you could implement change . Or did you feel that along the way you were fighting every step of the way to make change and to get what you wanted which was to be a physician . Guest it was both. Doctor mays on his weekly addresses to the students and would say things like this. He said whatever you choose to do in life you should do it so well that no man living, no man dead and no man yet to be could do it better. If you commit yourself to that, when they are looking for someone in your field whether it is engineering or physics or medicine or business or literature, you are so accomplished in your field that they will have to consider you. It shouldnt be because they were prepared. So what he was telling us is prepared for the opportunities so you can make the change. The way you fight the system is excelled. So youve got to be you when you went to medical school and you were one of 76, you were the only black student. How and its also the first time that you were in a non segregated environment. You had grown up in the south. How was that . He became class president and you really did excel and listened to his words. Im wondering how it was. Did you feel overwhelmed . How were you treated . How did you feel . Did they get in the way . Obviously not because he graduated from the top three in your class; am i right about that . Yes, yes. Did it get in the way how guest for me this was a great period of suspense and in trepidation because i done well at morehouse but almost 21 living now for the first time in a non segregated society and being the only black in my class, i had these questions. How am i going to do . Am i going to do well . Willing me to my current expectations . Blaine eat my own expectations . And then in the sense i felt i was representing the black community. So if i dont do well i will let everyone down. So that was that kind of experience and then talking about was the fact that most of my classmates had never heard of morehouse. I classmates were from middle very, harvard, princeton etc. And they all finished at the top of their classes, too. To make a long story short, first the examination was three weeks later and i did well because i was relaxed so from then on in terms of academic challenges i did well and second, my classmates were really very welcoming. I didnt get the hostility that i might get for being ignored or marginalized. So, it really was a very positive experience for me and also the faculty. So my experience in medical school compared with what i wondered what happened was a very positive experience. What about boston at the time . Boston was mixed, by and large i had read about paul revere and his ride and the election term and the constant battles and the boston tea party. And the first black to die in the revolutionary war. I read about him so i went to see the memorial. I soaked up the history of boston, and this was really quite interesting so, very positive. My experience in boston was very positive but in the late 50sfrom another member of the year i entered medical school this year that the brown v. Board of education was the courts decision and so as this was implemented around the country problems were not only in the south but boston was one of those areas so my experience was somewhat different than those that went in the late 50s. They found with the political shenanigans i still remember from south boston it became a very hostile environment of the community. But by that time i had really formed by friendship and relationship with my classmates and faculty and others i found myself sometimes explaining to the black youngsters coming to boston in the late 50s but this places and really the representation you get from the busing controversy etc. So, boston really did undergo a change in its environment between the mid50s when i entered in the late 50s when the busing controversy started. What about your relationship with andrew young, did that begin in georgia or did i begin during when did you meet . Because you have similar histories. You are four years apart, three years apart . Guest gave to id and began until i back to atlanta when he was a congressman from georgia and he was the congressman of Morehouse College and the medical school was located so he took me to washington to introduce me to the members of congress to work to get federal funding. But that was the first time that you went from interesting. Tell me you were the founding dean from the morehouse medical school. I was asking you backstage if this could be, or down the hall, i was asking about when youve created a medical school what was the sort of philosophy behind this and how you raised funds in that philosophy and how you got a lot of people to back the medical school which during the time that it came to pass and everything its just an interesting story so if you can talk about that that would be great. At the time there were 80 medical schools in the country. There were two that were africanamerican, howard and washington, d. C. Which opened in 1868 and the Medical College in nashville that opened in 1881. There always has been a shortage of black physicians and other minority positions in the country. There still is today. So, the rationale for the development of the school of medicine was as follows. First of all, as a country, we have a shortage of physicians. Congress passed legislation in the late 50s and 60s to stimulate the development of the medical schools. So there were 80 medical schools in 1950. We added 47 to those 80 by 1981. So there was a massive period of expansion in the medical education between 1956 and 1981. The Morehouse School of medicine came along during that time but there was also the Civil Rights Movement that started in the mid50s. So, the rationale for developing the school of medicine was to work to train more positions. So the development of the school of medicine really was influenced by those two major events. Expansion of medical education in general and the Civil Rights Movement really showing in stark detail the many deficiencies in terms of the lives of blacks including having a doctors and including having minority doctors as well so thats how that came about. By 1970 i was a professor of medicine at the boston university. Id become a Research Hematologist and thought i havent really found my niche in medicine because i really loved hematology, loved, loved the research, loved taking care of patients with blood diseases etc. But Morehouse College, my alma mater decided they wanted to start a medical school to address the shortage of black physicians. The choice of the Advisory Committee and ended up being recruited to head the effort and thats what i am beyond. The effort was supported by not only the black physicians that the white as well and thats because again, the civil rights activities of the 50s, 60s, 70s had shown in stark detail the situations they faced so many blacks and other minorities. So, we had the support of the state chapter of the association and georgia as well as the state chapter of the National Association and georgia and a lot of support from the Business Community and the philanthropic communities as well so that enabled us to start in the third school in the country. And this then began your introduction into politics because didnt you ask didnt you ask Ronald Reagan too i guess cut the ribbon or whatever it is, to open the doors to be at the ceremony and it was the Vice President george bush at the time who came and then he asked you to go on a delegation to africa; and i write . And then you are interested you became friendly with the bushes at that point and barbara bush was interested in education and reading and all that and then when he became president and tried to try to move on, you then became involved in the political side. Can you talk about what you were instrumental making sure the first woman president or the head of the nih under the command but also the Surgeon General was the first latino woman. I mean you were instrumental in making sure there was diversity. This has always been your mission. But when you took over talk about just beating the bushes and then the next stage of your life. Guest yes, right. Well what happened is this. We started the first class of Morehouse School of medicine in 1978. The facilities on the campus of Morehouse College the first building for the medical school was dedicated in july of 1982. Thats when Vice President george h. W. Bush was a speaker. He came and was scheduled to stay only a few minutes for a reception afterwards that but he stayed more than an hour. He was enjoying himself then andy young, john lewis, ed mcintyre, the black mayor of augusta and many others were there, democrats are getting their pictures taken with this republican Vice President , so that was a great event. As he left then two weeks later he called and asked if i would go with him on a trip he was planning in november of 82. I said mr. Vice president this is great but since im not a governor, why would you want me, what with my bowlby . He said to be honest with you, we dont have them andy young and our administration and i dont feel like i can go without a proper africanamerican and my delegation. So you would do me a favor but more importantly he would do the country a service if you would be willing to do it. I appreciated his honesty and i went. On the trip was barbara bush. She was speaking to groups in zimbabwe, zambia, literacy groups. So on the way back after two weeks of visiting the eight countries in subsaharan africa, i spoke to her on the plane and i said you and i are in the same business, different branches. Youre in literacy and im a medical. Youre a new school and we need someone like you on the board. Would you be willing to consider and she accepted us as she came on our board in january of 83. Then my wife and i were caught and we being invited to things at the Vice President s home so we got to know them very well. One of my trustees wanted to be secretary and i was pushing him because i thought he would be a great secretary. But when bush was elected, rather than him taking my trusty he asked me to serve so thats how that happened. But when he asked me to serve i said the things i really would want to have happen and i would like to know how do you feel about this i said we need more minorities and position in positions of authority. We need to have more and he said thats great. I support you. So when i became secretary, i pushed very hard and i should mention the first woman was the head of the nih appointed, the first woman Surgeon General who is also a latina, the first black to have social security, glenn king, other programs to increase as well as programs to benefit the black community. So he was very supportive of that and one other thing most people dont know, the bush family has been involved in the United Negro College fund since its beginning in 1946. George h. W. Bushs mother was one of the first directors, a bush member of the family on the board continuously since that time. So come he convinced me come he is supportive of education and diversity so it was a pleasure and an honor to serve. I also mentioned when we were talking but i wanted to talk about the current state of things. Since you have lived in a segregated society, you were in boston in the late 50s when things were not so easy that you were in medical school when they were easier. There seems to me to be a way with gender issues, feminism and race issues that reminds me of 1968. Theres an interest with black wives matter and whats really happening and there seems to be a swelling of political activity because people are protesting. People are angry and want to talk about it and i was wondering how you see this because you have really seen for years youve seen this go up and down, youve seen the expansion of things. Well you speak to what you think is happening now and why now . Thats a good question. Let me say one thing as a part of the framework. When i finished the Boston School of medicine i was the first black intern in New York New York hospital cornell medical center. That was 1958, not so many y