Lab Coats and Little Sleep

fter finishing Howard, my father received a medical internship at Harlem Hospital.

He was returning to the community that had been a second home to him since his teenage years. His Brotherhood Fellowship Teams would ride the (subway) "tube" from Jersey City under the Hudson River to lower Manhattan. From there, they would take a subway uptown for games at the Renaissance Casino on 138th Street and Seventh Avenue.

Harlem was a magical place for black people throughout the United States in the '20's and early '30's. Marcus Garvey's Back-to-Africa Movement, Small's Paradise night club, and Madam Walker's Salon for black artists and intellectuals fomented, along with numerous other political and cultural elements, in the cauldron of Harlem.

Working long hours as an intern, my father didn't have the time to experience the full range of Harlem's effervescence. Undoubtedly, however, his professional and personal development was influenced by the continually evolving black identity of the Harlem community.

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