Drue King
The doctors, nurses, and administrators of the Veterans Hospital at Tuskegee pose for a photograph in 1933. Drue King, Tufts M1914, is in the second row, second from the right.
Born in 1887, Drue King was one of the first Black men to complete a medical degree at Tufts Medical College in 1914.
King was born in Augusta, Georgia, the youngest of fourteen children. His father, Albert King, was a respected hotel porter in Augusta, who encouraged the academic aspirations of his youngest son. In the early 1900s, Drue King moved north to study at Boston’s distinguished English High School, graduating in 1907. Despite state civil rights laws, racial discrimination was common in the city’s medical facilities. Nevertheless, Boston hospitals admitted Black patients and trained a small number of Black physicians. After completing his medical studies at Tufts, King interned at Boston City Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Currently located on the campus of Northeastern University, this building at 416 Huntington Avenue housed Tufts Medical School from 1901 to 1949 when Drue King attended.
After a brief return to Augusta, King settled in Alabama and in 1925 accepted a position as a surgeon at the Tuskegee Veterans Hospital, providing medical care to African American veterans in the segregated South. He specialized in the study and treatment of tuberculosis and later held an internship at the distinguished Laennec Clinic in Paris. Drue King died in Tuskegee in 1947.
Anastasia Leahy, A26, conducted the initial research into the life of Drue King as part of the Spring 2024 class, “Slavery and Tufts: Archival Research Seminar."