An article I found in a journal online…
[The section pertaining to Oswald is below. A link to view the complete article is included at the end.]

Opening the Doors of the Great Republic: Sex, Race, and Organized Medicine in Mississippi
Lucius M. “Luke” Lampton, MD, Editor

Oswald Garrison Smith, MD
The First Scientific Member

The first African-American to be admitted/elected into the MSMA, although in this limited “scientific” status, was Oswald Garrison Smith (1915 – 2002) of Clarksdale.  (See this month’s “images in Mississippi Medicine” on page 214.)  He was born September 4, 1915 in Vicksburg, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Perry Monroe Smith.  He attended the public schools of Mound Bayou and attended Bolivar County Training School there.

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Here’s an article I found online…

A Calling That’s Lasted 50 Years
By Hamil R. Harris

When Perry Smith III moved to the District in the 1950s, he had planned to attend medical school at Howard University — an opportunity that wasn’t available in his black hometown of Mound Bayou, Miss.

More than 50 years later, Smith is celebrating his vocation — not as a doctor, but as pastor of First Baptist Church of North Brentwood for the past half century.

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