Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard (March 4, 1908 – May 1, 1976) was an American civil rights leader, fraternal organization leader, entrepreneur and surgeon. He was a mentor to activists such as Medgar Evers, Charles Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, Amzie Moore, Aaron Henry, and Jesse Jackson, whose efforts gained local and national attention leading up to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Howard founded Mississippi's leading civil rights organization in the 1950s, the Regional Council of Negro Leadership; and played a prominent role in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till in the late 1950s. He was also president of the National Medical Association, chairman of the board of the National Negro Business League, and a leading national advocate of African-American businesses. His contributions were clearly not only in a clinical setting, but also in his addressing of social determinants of health that disproportionately impact the black community.
Early life and education Howard was born on March 4, 1908, in Murray, Kentucky, to Arthur Howard, a tobacco twister, and Mary Chandler, a cook for Will Mason, a prominent local white doctor and member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Mason took note of the boy's work habits, talent, ambition, and charm. He put him to work in his hospital and eventually paid for much of his medical education. Howard later showed his gratitude by adding "Mason" as a second middle name. His medical career was fostered out of his relationship to Mason, as he worked closely with Mason as his protége. Howard attended three Adventist colleges: Oakwood Junior College, a historically black college in Huntsville, Alabama; the nearly all-white Union College in Lincoln, Nebraska; and the College of Medical Evangelists (now Loma Linda University) in Loma Linda, California. While at Union College, he won the Anti-Saloon League of America's national contest for best orator in 1930. During his years in medical school in California, Howard took part in civil rights and political causes and wrote a regular column for the California Eagle, the main black newspaper of Los Angeles. He was president of the California Economic, Commercial, and Political League. Through the League and his columns, he championed black business ownership, the study of black history, and opposed local efforts to introduce segregation. In 1935, he married prominent black socialite Helen Nela Boyd; they were married 41 years. After a residency at Homer G. Phillips Hospital (in St. Louis, Missouri), Howard became the medical director of the Riverside Sanitarium, the main Adventist health care institution to serve African Americans.
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