Historian Jill Newmark will discuss her research on Richard Henry Greene, the first African American to graduate from Yale University and a key figure in her new book Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons.

Of some twelve thousand Union Civil War surgeons, only fourteen were Black men. This book is the first-ever comprehensive exploration of their lives and service. Newmark presents all available information about the surgeons’ early lives, influences, education, Civil War service, and post-war experiences. Many of the stories overlap, as did the lives of the men. Each man, through his service as a surgeon during the war and his lifelong activism for freedom, justice, and equality, became a catalyst of change and a symbol of an emancipated future.

Jill L. Newmark, independent historian, is a former curator and exhibition specialist at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. She has curated numerous exhibitions and written several articles on African American medical personnel who served during the American Civil War.