Dr. James Graham

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  Interviewer: And now it’s recording. Okay. Welcome, Dr. Graham. Today is Thursday, March 24, and I am in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. And I am interviewing Dr. James Graham, UNC School of Medicine Class of 1974.

  Dr. Graham: Long time ago.

  Interviewer: Where are you broadcasting from, Dr. Graham?

  Dr. Graham: I’m in Southport, North Carolina. That’s where I retired to, a little town called Southport, North Carolina, right out of Wilmi –

  [Crosstalk]

  Interviewer: [Inaudible] [00:00:32]. Sorry, I cut you off.

  Dr. Graham: I said it’s right between Myrtle Beach and Wilmington. So, a little seaport town.

  Interviewer: Awesome. Very nice. As I mentioned when we first spoke, this interview is part of a project that medical students, first years to third years, wanted to do about some of the experiences as trainees of African American alumni, meaning their time as medical students and their time as residents. And to start us off, would you please tell us about your place and date of birth?

  Dr. Graham: Yes. I was born on June 1st, 1948, in a little tobacco town not far from Southport called Lumberton, North Carolina.

  Interviewer: What was your family like, Dr. Graham? What was it like growing up with them?

  Dr. Graham: Well, my father was a military man. And so, I was born in 1948, and my mother and father got married that year. My mother went off to college, and I was raised for the first probably five years of my life, four to five years, by my grandmother in Lumberton, a little small town, a little area called Gavintown, which is a predominantly Black community. Probably about 20 families lived in this little, small Gavintown area of Lumberton. Many of us were relatives. A little dirt road, outdoor toilets, and those type things.

  And so, the first five years of my life, while my mother was in college, my daddy was in the military, I was raised by my grandmother, Geneva Love.

  And once my mother graduated, I joined her in Charlotte. And she was a teacher. She graduated in elementary education. And I went to the same school that she taught in a place called Huntersville, North Carolina, right out of Charlotte. That was her first job, was in Huntersville. So, I went to a little small Black school called Torrence-Lytle School in Huntersville. And so, I did that. When I went with her, I think I was in the first grade. And we were there for about three years.

  And after that, my father was transferred to Germany. And my mother and I accompanied my dad to Germany, a little place called Stuttgart. Most of us heard of Stuttgart from the standpoint of Mercedes Benz. They are made there. And a little small town out of there is for the military base. The army was stationed in Ludwigsburg. And Ludwigsburg was like a suburb of Stuttgart.

  So, I stayed there for, I think, three years with them. And in Germany for those three years, I went to school there. And so, I essentially finished – three or four years – I finished my middle school in Germany at Stuttgart – Junior High School, I guess you’d call it.

  And then we moved to Charlotte. My dad came back to the states. He was stationed in probably Fort Benning, Georgia. And my mother was a teacher. And she always wanted to live in Charlotte and wanted to be in North Carolina. So, my mother and I, we all went back to Charlotte, North Carolina.

  And in Charlotte, I attended what they call West Charlotte Senior High School. So, I think I was probably in about the 9th or the 10th grade. So, I spent my high school years in Charlotte. Graduated from West Charlotte.

  I planned to go to A & T. But a history teacher that I had took an interest in me and convinced me to go to North Carolina Central. And so, that’s where I went, was North Carolina Central and majored in biology and chemistry.

  And once I finished those years at North Carolina Central, I’d always planned to be a dentist. That’s what my goal was. You know, you write in the yearbook in high school what you wanna be.

  But when I was at North Carolina Central, one of my first mentors, or second mentor after my high school teacher, was Dr. Vernon Clark. And Dr. Clark essentially took students into a special program when you were there and worked with you in the science club. And I was in the science’s science club. And he kind of directed me to consider medicine over dentistry. He said, “You should go to medical school, not dental school, and we need more doctors.” So, I took that, and he acted as my mentor at North Carolina Central.

  And sure enough, I got accepted to Chapel Hill to go to medical school. And this was a time that we had what we call affirmative action, in 1970 when I finished college. I got admitted to Meharry; I got admitted to Howard. I applied to probably 15, 20 different medical schools, and the ones I got into were Chapel Hill, Howard, Meharry. Didn’t get into Harvard and all these places, like I was reaching for the stars.

  But it was economically reasonable for me because the tuition back then for medical school – actually, Chapel Hill and – it was cheaper to go to Chapel Hill because I was an in-state student as opposed to going to Howard and Meharry. So, I think I spent $600 a semester, $1,200 a year, to go to medical school at Chapel Hill. And I did that.

  And that year was the first year, 1970, that they took in a large number of Afro-American students. Historically, the colleges in general would take in maybe one or two at the most into their class, and you had to be almost like Einstein to get in from the standpoint of scores on the MCAT score and all of that, to get into these schools. But this was the year that affirmative action took place. Federal government said, “We’re no longer going to fund your schools if you don’t open your doors up to more minorities.”

  There were 10 of us that went in that particular year into Chapel Hill. Most of us was from historically Black colleges. However, there was one fellow actually in our class that was from North Carolina State. And then there was another one who was from Chapel Hill that was Black. He had gone to undergraduate at Chapel Hill. But the rest of us, the other eight of us, had gone to historically Black colleges: A & T, North Carolina Central, Howard. I think there was someone else, David Copperidge. I think David’s may be Hampton. Those schools, for the most part. But we had two people who had gone to an integrated school and not to a historically Black.

  So, we came in, and we formed a little study group together. And they kind of looked at us and said, “These people aren’t gonna make it.” Because most of the students who were admitted to Chapel Hill – it was a hard school to get into – from Davidson, Duke, State, other White colleges around the country and so forth. So, we got together.

  And so, I was telling you about Harshaw. One of the Black advisors recommended that we be supervised through this first year by Harshaw. And he would meet with us at our study groups once or twice a week. And we had our little study group that we actually studied together from the standpoint of – oh, at least five days a week we would get together.

  The other thing that was very helpful for us at this time, most of you know James Taylor. James Taylor is the singer. And his father, he became the dean of the medical school in 1970. And he was different. Most deans walk around in suits and ties and very stiff and so forth. And he came in being very liberal. Had a ponytail; didn’t wear a tie; wore lose clothing and so forth. And so, everybody looked at him kinda strange because he wasn’t the typical dean of a medical school, the way he dressed, the way he carried himself.

  And one of the things he did when he came in, he revamped the whole curriculum of Chapel Hill from the standpoint of historically, you’d start your classes in the morning at 8:00, and you’d finish at about 5:00 in the afternoon, after you did your labs and all your studies and your courses and this type thing. And he came in and said, “I want to free you medical students up in the afternoon. Your classwork will be from 8:00 until 12:00, and you’ll be free to study in the afternoons on your own. You do what you want to do with that time.”

  And that was the first two years. That was the first two years of medical school was mostly classroom work and going to the lab to work on your cadavers and things like this.

  So, that really helped us because we stuck together, and we’d have lunch. And from that time on until – that whole afternoon up until 10:00, 11:00, 12:00 at night, we were studying together. And many of us didn’t stop there. We were up to 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning studying. So, it gave us a lot of time to prepare for exams and to try to stay on top of things. And we thought that was wonderful, the fact that not having to stay in the classroom all day until 5:00, and then it gave us this extra time.

  And a lot of the White kids had taken a lot of the courses, biochemistry and all these type things, microbiology. And many of us did not have the same intense courses. So, they were like a big holiday for them. They just did their little studying. And it was very acceptable from the standpoint of the pressure that was on you as a medical student, from the standpoint of a lot of the White kids. But it was very valuable time for us that we had that time to really devote to studying together and having the additional time to just be on your own and prepare yourself.

  So, we worked like that for that first year. And my goodness, we all did well, passed the classes. Didn’t have to go through any – you know, sometimes, you don’t do well during the first year, they have you to go to summer school and take those courses during summer school.

  So, I had worked with Dr. Clark, who was my mentor at North Carolina Central. So, I had some experience in the laboratory because he was a molecular biologist, and I had worked at his laboratory with him many afternoons while I was in undergraduate school.

  So, I hooked up with Dr. Brinkhous and Dr. Harold Roberts. He was a hematologic oncologist. And they had a laboratory. Chapel Hill was known around the world for hemophilia and working with hemophiliacs. And Dr. Brinkhous brought that technology into Chapel Hill when he left the University of Iowa and became the chairman of the Pathology Department. So, he brought that technology with him as well from the standpoint of making Chapel Hill stand out in coagulation.

  So, Dr. Roberts, I interviewed with him. And he said, “Well, why don’t you work in my lab this summer? I have a project I’m doing, and you can go in and learn techniques about how to work in a laboratory and so forth. And we’re working on a project, Factor XIII. We don’t know how Factor XIII deficiencies develop in individuals and what the factors are.” So, we worked on that in the summer, and not only that, I continued to work on that throughout the sophomore year.

  And lo and behold, we came up with the answer. And I was the one that essentially was doing all the bench work. And so, he came to me, he said, “Jim, we’ve got it.” He said, “I know it’s an antibody that is blocking this Factor XIII, and we’ve discovered the antibody.” I said, “Is that right?” And he said, “Yeah.” He said, “We’re going to publish this.” I said, “We’re going to publish it?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “You’re gonna be one of the authors. Matter of fact, you’re going to be the lead author.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding!” He said, “Yeah, I’m gonna make you the lead author.”

  So, I’d go over to his office at 5:00 in the morning. And we’d sit there, and we’d write this article, or write this journal, which was in Hematology, Hematology Journal. That’s the biggest journal in oncology for research and so forth, was the Hematology Journal. So, he let me be the first author.

  And then, I had to present. He said, “Now, they’re having the international meeting for hematology in Washington, D.C. at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and I want you to go with me. And I want you to present this paper to all the people around the world.” I said, “You’re kidding!” He said, “Yep, that’s what I want you to do.”

  So, I was nervous and everything and so forth. And he practiced with me as to how to present it and all this and worked with me and worked with me and said, “Well, you know, you a little nervous. I’m gonna give you a Valium before you go up there.”

  Interviewer: He’s a doctor.

  Dr. Graham: So, he gave me five milligrams of Valium. I went up on that stage and blew the place out. Not nervous at all.

  Interviewer: Relaxed.

  Dr. Graham: So, I couldn’t answer a lot of the questions that the hematologists were asking in the crowd. So, he’d step up and, “Well, I’ll handle that question.” And he would cover it and so forth. So, he was awfully proud of me, and I was proud of myself that I got one of the lead articles in Hematology, I was the author on it and all this type thing. And that really harp – not harpooned, but just gave me all the confidence in the world, having done this.

  So, he said, “Well, I want you to go to the –” what is it called? “– the American Medical Association. It’s actually the Student Medical Association. They’re gonna have all the research that students have done in the United States. They go and present the information down in Galveston at this meeting on a yearly basis. I want you to go and present this paper.”

  So, we had a couple other medical students that worked in the lab too, and they took their papers. And we all went down to Galveston, about three of us, and presented our papers. And lo and behold, my paper came in third out of all the – I said, “Oh, my goodness!” So, I got this big thing from the standpoint of that and a plaque and so forth and came back.

  So, I spent the next year just talking, giving talks on Factor XIII and all that. So, it really catapulted my career by him giving me that opportunity to do that. And so, matter of fact, we went through the second year. We did fine. Then we went into the clinical rotations and so forth.

  And they were grooming me to be a heme-oncologist, or at least a pathologist. Dr. Brinkhous was working with me. He said, “You gonna go into pathology,” and so forth. And another fellow too who had worked in pathology with Dr. Brinkhous, had both of us kind of in the slot to, once we finished medical school, to go into pathology and concentrate on hemophilia and all of that kinda stuff.

  So, that’s what I was gonna do. Third year, I sent all my applications out. Going to be a pathologist. And lo and behold – I’m from Charlotte, North Carolina, as I mentioned – and a group of Afro-American physicians in Charlotte bought a city block in downtown Charlotte and built a nine-story building. And essentially, the first two floors were devoted to medicine, and the third floor was actually radiology and pharmacy. And the others were, like, lawyers and other business of Blacks in the area.

  But this was in downtown Charlotte. So, it was all in Jet magazine, what these Black doctors had done. And it’s the first group of Afro-Americans who had ever created a multi-specialty group. They had three surgeons, two OB/gyns, three primary care doctors, two pediatricians, a radiologist. They had everything.

  So, they knew I was from Charlotte and at Chapel Hill. So, when I finished that second year and so forth – or third year – they said, “Why don’t you come to Charlotte this summer and spend that summer with us and rotate through the various physicians’ offices and see if this gives you an idea as to what medical practice is like?” So, I said, “No problem.” So that summer, I spent the whole summer there in Charlotte with these Black doctors, rotating through surgery, pediatrics, primary care, obstetrics and so forth.

  And there was one fellow that stood out that was very, very outstanding. And he was a gynecologic oncologist who had practiced – gynecologic oncology did not become a specialty, boarded specialty, until 1974. But they did have programs that taught individuals how to treat female cancers. And he happened to be one of the first Afro-Americans – not Af – he was actually from the islands. But he was Black, but he was from one of the islands.

  And he had gone through Downey State. And that was the only program in gynecologic oncology in the country that trained Blacks to be oncologists. And he was in academics for a year and decided he wanted to go into private practice. So, he left the academics and came to Charlotte and joined this group. And I had an opportunity to rotate with this man.

  And I was so impressed with him, to see – go to the operating room. His hands were smooth as silk. He was – very little blood loss and all this kinda stuff. And he said, “So, you know, this is very interesting. I really –” He’s the one that really made me interested in gyn-oncology. And he said, “You don’t go into obstetrics and gynecology to just be average.” He said, “You’re Black.” He said, “Even if you go into obstetrics and gynecology, you need to do a fellowship in oncology so that you’re better than your White counterparts. Because most of them aren’t going to get the intense surgical experience that you’ll get in oncology.” So, that stuck with me.

  So, I went back, cancelled all my applications for pathology, and sent them off for obstetrics and gynecology, thinking that I was going to be a gyn-oncologist one day. Sure enough, after that year, Dr. Walton was his name, he left that practice. And I talked to him. I said, “Why in the world did you leave private practice?” He said, “Let me tell you.” He said, “It was hard.”

  He said, “I’m a Black man, and I have patients to come in to me with massive fibroids, all kinds of masses and so forth. And I was better than the average gynecologist in Charlotte. So, what would happen is is that I’d get an emergency call to come to the operating room to help this gynecologist out to get out of some bleeding problems. And I’d walk in there, and I’d see that was Ms. Ann. And Ms. Ann had seen me in the office two weeks earlier. And she didn’t trust me, and she went to this guy. And he gets into trouble, and I got to go and bail him out.” He said, “I’d just had enough.” He said, “I just saw too much of that, and I just couldn’t stand it anymore.”

  And that was the way it was in the south, is that Black patients really didn’t trust Black doctors. They just felt that White doctors were better. And that bothered him. So, he left private practice and came and went on to the – went to Chapel Hill, became a gyn- oncologist at Chapel Hill. He became the first Black gyn-oncologist at Chapel Hill. So.

  But the reason he left is that the Black patients didn’t trust him, and it was frustrating to him to have to come into the operating room and help these White guys out, when the patient was originally in his hands, and he winds up helping them anyway. So, I guess, mentally that just bothered him.

  But anyway, so, I came back and started and applied for all of obstetrics and gynecology programs. And Dr. Brinkhous – and another thing that happened that was so tremendous. Dr. Brinkhouse, I went in, and I had to have my letters of recommendation sent off to these schools. And I wanted to ask him if he would write me a letter of recommendation. And he was disappointed that I wasn’t going into pathology. He said, “Well, Jim,” he said, “I’ll tell you what, son.” He said, “You write the letter, you write the recommendation, and I’ll sign it.” I just fell back. I said, “What?”

  So, you don’t wanna talk too much about yourself or whatever. And so, I had to write my own letter of recommendation for Dr. Brinkhous. Obviously, I made it sound good. But I mean, I didn’t try to make it too – So, that was a positive coming from him, who was an internationally known man, getting a letter of recommendation that strong from him. It really opened up doors for me because of that.

  So, that’s how I got into Duke, the first Afro-American to attend Duke’s obstetrics and gynecology program. So, that was in 1974. They had never admitted an Afro-American into their program. And the thing that was so ironic about it, I don’t know why, but that program had six residents per year. The year I came in, they had seven. I never thought about it. I said, “You know, why do they have seven this year, and they only had six?” The next year, they took in six. So, I was the only year that they had seven. I guess they didn’t think I was gonna make it or something.

  But anyway, I went through there, and I worked hard and did the best I could and those kinds of things. And that worked out well. Did my four years. And Dr. Roy T. Parker was the chairman. And one of the grandfathers of gyn-oncology was Bill Creasman, and he was at Duke. They had a very strong program in oncology, fellowships and those kind of things at Duke, and he was the Director of Oncology there. So, we went there and worked with him. And I told him, I said, “I wanna be a gyn-oncologist just like you.” He said, “Okay, you got to work hard.”

  So, I busted my butt trying to do the best I could to impress Bill Creasman. And there were two of us who wanted to go into oncology in that program, one White boy who was from Indiana and myself, both of us, Steve Scott and myself. He said, “Well, I can only take one of you. So, I’m gonna let one of you do rotation in July to September, and the other do a rotation from September through November or December,” whatever that length of time was.

  So, I did it first. Went through and did my July all the way through September. And then Scott did his. And then it’s time for match. And I was pretty much sure that I was going to go to Duke and be at Duke and do my fellowship. And I applied some other places, University of Iowa and those kinds of places and so forth and where Brinkhous had come from and those kinds of things.

  So, Bill Creasman selected neither one of us. He selected a boy who had been in private practice in Chapel Hill who wanted to do oncology. So, he gave that fellowship to that fellow who was in private practice, and Steve Scott and I were left out in the cold.

  So, I went to Roy T. Parker, who was the chairman. And I said, “Well, you know, I’m trying to get in.” He said, “Well, we’ll get you in, son. Don’t worry about it.”

  So, a fellow at the University of Iowa was a Jewish fellow by the name of Bucksbaum. So, I went up there and interviewed with Bucksbaum. He said, “You got the program here, buddy.” He said, “Brinkhous recommended you. You the man. We gonna take you.” So, he was a Jewish guy. So, I said, “My goodness!” So, I went back, happy and stuff.

  So, when the – I guess the match came out in something like April or May, March or something like that – Dr. Bucksbaum called me and told me, he said, “Jim,” he said, “I’m sorry, son.” Said, “I’m leaving Iowa. I’m going down to University of Texas.” He wanted the chairmanship there, the chairman. He thought he was gonna step into the chairmanship at Iowa, and they gave it to someone else. And that pissed him off, and he was gonna leave because he wanted to be the chairman. He just thought – you know. And so, he left and went to Texas.

  So, I went down and – So, that was devastating to me because that was really the only program that I’d been accepted into. And so, I talked to Roy T. Parker. And he sat there, and I never will forget it. I’m disappointed. What am I gonna do? It’s something like March and don’t have a place to go and so forth. And what am I going to do? I didn’t wanna go on to private practice. I had several offers to go into private practice, but I really didn’t wanna do that. I wanted to do this oncology.

  So, as I was sitting there talking to him, telling him my story – and this is an old southern gentleman, deep southern boy is from – I guess he was something like from Kinston, North Carolina. I’m sitting there telling my story, and I looked at him. He put his hand on my shoulder. And I swear to God, a tear dropped down his eye. I said, “What in the world?” He said, “Son, you gonna be an oncologist.” And that was the last thing I heard.

  Next thing I know, Bucksbaum calls me and said, “Jim, we want you to come down to Texas. And I’m gonna have a fellowship, not this year, but next year. And what I want you to do this year that I’m creating this fellowship, I want you to work in the laboratory. They got 12 PhDs down here. And you work in the laboratory for a year. And the next year, you’ll start your clinical rotation as a fellow in gyn-oncology.”

  And that was the biggest break, I tell you. And at that time – this was the University of Texas in Dallas called Southwestern Medical School. The Ob-Gyn department had gotten a $12 million – I guess it was a $12 million fund from Texas Instruments to create research there at that institute and make it one of the strongest programs from the standpoint of research coming out of it.

  And what they did was, they had 12 PhDs to work in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. And they were pumping papers out every month in the green journal. Every month. And you see all this research coming out of Dallas and so forth, primarily because they had all these PhDs.

  So, they put me in the lab with this PhD. And I spent the year in that lab learning all about doing major research. And I did the thing on – that research was on – boy, I’m trying to remember what that was – cyclic AMP – that’s Krebs cycle – as to how that worked. And they wanted to figure out estrogens. And they were growing daggone tumor cells in culture. And I was able to work in the lab and learn about cell culture and cyclic AMP and all of those things. And got a paper out of that and so forth.

  So, all these things were just fortunate for me from the standpoint they were untimely, the way they happened, but it all worked out good for me. Got the opportunity to train at one of the strongest research places in the country in OB/Gynie there at Texas. Paul McDonald, daggone – Paul McDonald. Dr. Gant, who was well known in obstetrics; all these. Pritchett, who had the Bible for obstetrics and gynecology – obstetrics. Dr. Pritchett was there. So, I was working with all these guys. I said, “My God! How did all this happen? It’s amazing!”

  But anyway, that exposure just catapulted my career. And I could have been anything I wanted to be essentially because I had all the strong people behind me and research and all that stuff. So, my goal was to be a chairman one day. And that’s what I’d say. I’m gonna be a chairman at one of these institutions.

  So, I went on and finished that fellowship. And I got hired by Rush University in Chicago. Had opportunities to go other places, but the chairman of the program was from Duke. That’s another thing. They take care of the Duke folks.

  So, they took me in there and brought me in as a gyn-oncologist, with the chairman being an oncologist, which was a big positive. And so, there were three of us. Ed Yordan, myself, and Dr. Wilbanks were the three oncologists there at Rush University. And I stayed there for 10 years working with them.

  And it was time for me to make a decision as to when I was going to go out on my own. I’d been in academics for 10 years and stuff. And the question was, where do I go from here?

  Another fellow from Duke was at the University of Louisville, and he was a chairman down there. And at the time, I was the Director of Oncology over at the University of Illinois. Because even though I was at Rush Presbyterian, they did not have an oncologist at Illinois. So, I went over and covered that university for being an oncologist.

  And Stan Gaul, who was from Duke, was a perinatologist there at the University of Illinois. And he was going down to the University of Louisville to essentially become the chairman. He said, “Jim, why don’t you come with me to Louisville? We’ve got an oncology program there. And there’s only one oncologist there. And I want you to come along with me.” So, I said, “I’ll go down there and look at it.” So, I went down. And guess what the name of the cancer institute was at Louisville?

  Interviewer: What was it?

  Dr. Graham: The James Graham Cancer Institute. My name!

  Interviewer: You?

  Dr. Graham: So, here’s James Graham getting ready to go to the James Graham Cancer Institute in Louisville. So, I went there, and the fellow who was there, he was well trained. MD Anderson is one of the most highly respected cancer institutes in the country, and this fellow had done his cancer training, who was there, at University of Louisville. And he wanted me to come in to be a partner with him. And it was an academics type of appointment.

  And so, that’s when I said, well, let me just look and see what else is out there. So, I got a headhunter who called me from Michigan and wanted to know if I would come up and look at Michigan State’s program. And it was in Flint, Michigan. And everybody said, “No, man. You don’t wanna go to Flint, Michigan. That’s the worst place in the world. They eat rabbits.” By that time, that’s that Roger and Me, the movie was called, that fellow who writes all these crazy movies, does these movies, Roger – forgotten his name. But anyway, that had just come out.

  So, I said, “I got nothing to lose. Let’s just go up there and see it.” So, I went up there to Hurley Hospital in Flint, Michigan. And man, I had been at Duke. I had been at University of Illinois. I had been at Dallas. I had been at Rush University. And when I walked into that hospital and saw their cancer program, I could not believe it. I mean, they had everything and more than what Duke had and all. I said, “What in the world is going on here?”

  Interviewer: Really? In Flint?

  Dr. Graham: And he said, “Well, you got to remember. This is where General Motors executives are, and General Motors paper. General Motors puts more money into this hospital, and anything you want, you can get.” And so, General Motors took care of its people.

  And that hospital had – I mean, it was just unbelievable. I went to the cancer floor. And the medical oncologists had this. Pediatric oncology, they had every – I said, my God! It was beautifully set up. And they said, “The only thing that we are missing is a gyn-oncologist. We need a gyn-oncologist up here. We’ve been looking for a gyn-oncologist for about five years.”

  And so, they showed me around. They wined me and dined me. And I looked around Flint. And I said, “You know, this is not bad. And they wanna pay me well to come up here and so forth. I would be the only GYN oncologist in northern Michigan. And I’m gonna have all these patients coming in and so forth.”

  So, I went home, and I talked to my wife about it. And we couldn’t decide. I was in Chicago. I liked Chicago, but I was working out of five hospitals. And we had five gyn-oncologists. Just had three initially. Now, we got five of us. And we were flying. We were going all over Chicago, going to these hospitals.

  And so, he said, “Well, what you do is that bring your wife up here and let her see us.” So, Sadie went, my wife. And it didn’t take her two minutes to say, “Hey, we’re going.” They made me an offer I couldn’t turn down. She liked it. So, one day, I came home, and there was a for sale sign in the front of my house. I said, “What is this for sale?” She said, “We’re moving to Flint.”

  So, that’s my story. So, I went to Flint and became an assistant professor at – it’s almost like Chapel Hill. You know, they have all these hospitals. The base hospital was in Lansing for the University of Michigan State. And they had a branch there in Flint; they had a branch in Saginaw; and they had a branch in Grand Rapids. Each one has its own residency program. Medical students from Lansing came and rotated through our various hospitals throughout the year.

  So, I got an appointment with Michigan State as a gyn-oncologist and stayed there for 17 years. I had one of the largest services of gyn-oncologists in the whole state. Because what happened is, I learned all this stuff about gynecologic oncology protocols and so forth.

  So, I sent my nurse down to Rush. And it was called the Gynecologic Oncology Group. It had all the research protocols I could put patients on and this type thing and set up my research laboratory there at Flint. And I was one of the biggest contributors to the GOG, which is the Gynecologic Oncology Group. At the same time, I was happy. I was in a small town. I wasn’t running all over the place. I had one hospital. It gave me more time to spend with my family.

  So, it was one of the best places that I’ve lived in my life. So, I stayed there for 17 years and then finally retired in 2006.

  And I brought a partner in. And that lasted for about five years. He stayed with me for about five years then branched out and went on his own up in Saginaw. So, it was hard work, working by yourself like that.

  So, it was killing me. So, at the age of 57 I said, I’m gonna either continue to do this and be dead by the age 65, or I’m going to quit now while I’m ahead. And because they paid me well, my wife was a saver. She put a lot of money aside for me and so forth. And she said, “You can retire, you know, if you want.” I said, “You’re kidding.” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “I’m outta here.” So, that was it. So, I retired in 2006 at the age of 57 and haven’t looked back. And life has been good. So.

  Interviewer: You retired early.

  Dr. Graham: That’s kinda – yeah. It was killing me though. It was killing me. Oncology is no joke. My surgeries lasted from anywhere between five – you have surgeries from five to eight, nine hours, doing pelvic exenterations, all that kinda stuff.

  So, I developed arthritis real bad in both my knees. And it got so bad at one point, I was standing there in pain. And between cases, the orthopedist would come in and draw fluid off my knees so I could go back in and do the rest of the surgery.

  So, it was time to go. It was stressful. I used to jog and play tennis, racquetball. And all that took its toll on me. And so, it was painful standing in the operating room in one spot. And I had all these soft cushions and different kinds of shoes stuff, trying to help my knees to feel more comfortable. But it was time to go. And I let it go, and I walked away from it after practicing for something like 30 years. And it was just time to go. So, that’s –

  [Crosstalk]

  Interviewer: Is that –?

  [Crosstalk]

  Dr. Graham: – my story.

  Interviewer: Is that when you moved back to Southport?

  Dr. Graham: Yeah. We moved to Southport. My wife is from Wilmington, which is not far away, 45 minutes from Southport. Her mother had Alzheimer’s. So, she has only one sister. So, it was good for us to come home and help her sister out with the management over her mother with Alzheimer’s.

  And then a few years later, my mother developed Alzheimer’s. And we brought her here and took care of her. And she just died in February, February the 1st this year. She was 91.

  So, I did the right thing. I came back home and took care of my family and my wife’s family. And so, we’ve been happy ever since, yeah.

  Interviewer: What a story! I have a few questions, and I want to ask them in the opposite order. So, instead of asking questions about when you were youngest, my question is about the more recent past. You talked about your wife. And I was wondering when abouts in your trajectory you got married. Was it in medical school?

  Dr. Graham: No, no. I got married – that’s what saved me. I got married my second year in college. I met her in college as a freshman. And our sophomore year, we were married. And so, we got married at 19 years old. And she’s been my backbone, keeping me straight on line.

  And she’s a professional lady too. She went to Chapel Hill and got her master’s in Public Health. And so, she was a health educator when we were in Chicago those 10 years. She was the Director of the Health – I’ve forgotten what it’s called. Anyway, she was over the department there for health education at the University of Ch – was that Northwestern? Northwestern. That was at Northwestern University she did that.

  But we had kids, and she only worked a couple years. Because we lived up in Highland Park, which was about an hour north of Chicago, in a place called Highland Park. And she’d catch the train down every morning to go to do her work at Northwestern. But our kids, we were having to change housekeepers. About every six months, a new person would come in. So, they’d come and go, come and go. So, I just kinda told her, I said, “Somebody’s gotta stay home and take care of these kids. I don’t want kids just the way we’re treating them now, people coming in and out, in and out, and not sticking with us.” Those nannies, they weren’t working out.

  So, she said, “Okay, I’ll give up my career, and we’ll pursue yours.” So, she gave up her career. Because she could have gone on and done great things in public health. And she gave up her career to go home and take care of the kids because we were having nanny problems.

  Interviewer: How many kids did you have?

  Dr. Graham: Three kids. Two boys and a girl. One boy’s a general surgeon. My daughter is a psychologist. And my other son is a teacher.

  Interviewer: I have another question. The James Graham Cancer Institute in Louisville?

  Dr. Graham: Yeah, isn’t that something? That was the name of the person who left the, I guess, a large amount of money there for them. Name was James Graham.

  Interviewer: Oh, okay. I’m glad that –

  [Crosstalk]

  Dr. Graham: [Inaudible] [00:44:51].

  [Crosstalk]

  Interviewer: – that’s what happened. I thought they were doing that to lure you for –

  Dr. Graham: No, no. No, no. It was another James Graham who had had a bunch of money there in Louisville and left all this money to the medical school, and they named the cancer center after him.

  Interviewer: That would have been something, though. Thank you. It was too good for the story. It was too good.

  You mentioned also that when you went to Duke that you were the first Black man in the OB/GYN residency.

  Dr. Graham: Exactly. Yeah.

  Interviewer: I’ve talked to many of our alumni. And this is a very common theme, being the first to do X, Y, or Z. Tell me something about the experience of being the first at doing a job that typically has not welcomed people who are not White.

  Dr. Graham: Well, my fellow residents, first-year residents, Chris Wilson was from Austin, Texas. Trained down there at Austin and went to medical school there and came up to Duke and did his fellowship. Very nice guy. Didn’t seem prejudiced at all.

  Mary Hammond was from Raleigh. Actually, she was one of the first – wasn’t the first, but the only female in the group. And she was very liberal.

  The other fellow, Steve Scott that I talked about, Steve went on to become a billionaire. And he was from Indiana. And it’s probably a good thing he didn’t do his training in oncology because he went on – Steve was kind of an entrepreneur. When at Duke, he was going and doing emergency room. He’d set up residents to be able to go and do emergency room coverage for all these little country hospitals in North Carolina. And so, they’d have to go through Steve, and Steve would assign them.

  That turned out to be a multi-million-dollar venture for him. Because when he finished his residency, he went into ob/gyn for a year. And then he – somebody’s trying to call me. That’s my wife. I’ll get back with her. He essentially developed the whole eastern coast from up Virginia all the way down to Florida. He set up the emergency room systems where he would have doctors to go into these various – that was before the time they had what they call emergency room doctors. That was back in the ’70s if you recall. Are you still there?

  Interviewer: Yep, I’m here.

  Dr. Graham: So, Steve organized that whole thing from Florida all the way up the east coast, emergency room. Became a multi-, multi-, multi-millionaire. Gave up ob/gyn and ran this multi-million-dollar corporation, which was – he was a classmate of mine.

  And so, he went into practice with a Black resident, a fellow behind me called Burt Walls. So, they were in Fayetteville, North Carolina. When he finished, he went to Fayetteville, started the practice. Then Burt joined him the next year.

  So, he turned the practice over to Burt while he developed this corporation for ER medicine. And then came back and told Burt, said, “Burt, I want you to just sell the practice. And I want you to go to Duke and get your master’s degree in business administration.”

  Burt sold the practice. Went to Duke. Got his master’s in economics. And he runs the corporation for Steve. So, both of them live down in Boca Raton, Florida, somewhere like that now, living the life. And –

  Interviewer: And so, another millionaire.

  Dr. Graham: Yeah, millionaires, both of them. So, just unbelievable. And so, it’s good for them. So, that was – he was not a prejudiced guy.

  And then Peter Lawson was from Portman. Portman, Maine. He didn’t have a prejudice bone in his body. Matter of fact, he was married, and his wife was a lawyer while he was in medical school.

  And so, we got along well. We had a great group. And I don’t think they would have tolerated for anybody to be prejudiced against me being perfectly honest because we were just that tight as a group.

  And little Arnie Grandis, who became a perinatologist, he was bouncing off the wall like lightning. He just couldn’t sit still.

  And so, all the residents just brought me in and treated me just like I was one of them. It was no different. Obviously, we had patient problems I had from the standpoint I was Black and so forth. I had those experiences, where the patient refused to see me. And then they’d have to go in and say, “Well, you have to go somewhere else if you’re not gonna see him.”

  And the chairman – that’s one of the things that stuck with me about him too, Dr. Parker. He had what they call a private diagnostic clinic at Duke. And a resident would be with him all the time when he went in to see his patients.

  So, I never will forget this. We walked into the room, and Ms. Ann is in there. Had a little white gown on. And I walk in. And she looks at him and says, “You have to get him out of here.” And he looked at her dead in the face and said, “Madam, you put your clothes on and get out of my office,” and walked out of the room. I mean, that was impressive. I mean, that impressed the hell out of me when he did that. I mean, this was one of his private patients. He tells her to put her clothes on and get out of his office because she was prejudiced. So, I said something about it.

  I mean, I didn’t think about being different. I just worked hard. They knew I was a hard worker. I always carried my load. And we helped each other out from the standpoint of each level. It’s almost like a fraternity. We helped each other out. They helped me out. I helped them out.

  And they knew I was smart. When I say smart, I was just as smart as they were. And I was dedicated to what I was doing. I loved it. And they knew what my goal was, to be a gyn-oncologist. That’s why I went there.

  And so, there was many situations that were prejudiced, but I just let it roll off my back. Like the thing from the standpoint of having seven residents as opposed to six. Another thing that they had that I never questioned, never said anything about it. As a senior resident at Duke, that’s your last year – chief resident, they’d call it – you would take one of your rotations during that senior year, or chief year, you would go out – and Duke had several people who were in practice around the state, and they would send you to their offices and spend that time so you could learn something about the office, how an office worked.

  That year that I came up, they didn’t do it. They didn’t do it. Because they knew there weren’t – nobody was gonna take a Black guy into their private office. You understand what I’m saying? I didn’t say nothing. Didn’t say a word. But you know, you just – Okay, okay. No problem. Just do what you supposed to do. And that’s what I did. And so, things like that, subtle racism, they call it. Subtle racism.

  And one of the things too that I became was what they call a buffalo.

  Interviewer: A buffalo?

  Dr. Graham: A buffalo. And what that is is it was kinda like a fun club amongst the residents, is that if somebody made a mistake on something, you’d write a chip up against them. Like if you got a fourth degree or maybe misdiagnosed twins, you would write that resident up and drop it into a little box, a little note, and charge him for that mistake that he made.

  And at the end of the year, you’d go and open up that box and read all the chips against everybody and charge them so that would pay for the party. “You owe us $50.00 because you got all these chips. You owe us $100.” You did all this over the year. And then we’d have a big party. We called it the buffalo party.

  And then you go to a buffalo party – and it was a big thing – have a buffalo party, and you’d read some of the chips off that people made mistakes they’d made during the year, how much you’d had to pay and all this kinda stuff. So, it was a lot of fun.

  Interviewer: That is funny.

  Dr. Graham: But that was an honor for me too is that each year, they had to select someone to be the buffalo. And I guess during my junior year there, my third year, they selected me to be the buffalo, other words the person who runs the daggone buffalo party, set it up, where we going and those kinds of things.

  But the thing is is that one of the things about the buffalo party, you have it out at a private place. And they used to have it at the Durham Country Club, before us Blacks came along. But they couldn’t do it there anymore because at the Durham – I guess it was called the Durham Country Club or some country club there, golf club and all that. I think it’s called the Dur – they couldn’t have a buffalo party there because we had Blacks. And that was another thing that happened is the fact that you had to change the venue for the buffalo party because the place that they would have it did not allow Blacks in their facility.

  So, those kinda things that just happened, you just kinda let it go.

  Chapel Hill, as I said, I really didn’t have any problems with prejudice and those kind of things that I can remember at Chapel Hill. We were students. A lot of the patients were indigent. And I just can’t pull back up in my recollection where I experienced something negative at Chapel Hill because I was Black, if you understand what I’m saying.

  I don’t know. I’m not sure if I was naïve or what the situation was. But I was so focused on becoming a good physician and being the best at what I was doing that that stuff just rolled off my back. It just rolled off my back.

  Interviewer: I wonder –

  Interviewee: And so, I can’t pull up an incident at Chapel Hill where that happened, like I can pull up at Duke.

  It’s like the pathologist and Dr. Roberts and all, everything was just giving. They were giving people. And it made no difference. I was just like – just like he had other people working in his lab. He sent other people down to Texas for this thing. But he just gave me the honor, which was a big honor, of being able to do this Factor XIII, being able to discover the fact that there was an antibody that was destroying Factor XIII, and that’s why people were bleeding.

  But that was probably one of the most liberal things that he – you know, he surely should have been the first author. I went to his office, 5:00 in the morning, and we’d sit there. And he’d be writing and so forth. And I’d say, “Yep, I would add this, and I would add that.” But he’s writing the whole article, you know?

  Interviewer: Yeah. Wow.

  Dr. Graham: And he just said, “I want you to –” And I kinda feel bad because I probably would have been a good pathologist. I’d have had a different life, being a pathologist as opposed to an oncologist. Maybe a lot less pressure. I might be still in medicine today because pathology, there’s not a lot of pressure in that. And so, that’s the way life is. You just never know.

  But those guys in Charlotte influenced me so much, particularly that little fellow from the islands, that I just –

  Interviewer: Dr. Walton.

  Dr. Graham: – wanted to be just like him. The Black guy, yeah.

  Interviewer: Yeah. I remem – when you were talking about him. I mean, I thought a little bit about how things really wound up getting to him, the racism that he saw day to day until he said, “You know, I’m done.”

  Dr. Graham: I’m done. I –

  Interviewer: I don’t need it.

  Dr. Graham: He couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle. I mean, I could understand. How would you feel? These guys calling you in, and you’re good. And yet and still the patients don’t trust you. The patients don’t trust you. The physicians are calling you in to help. They know you’re good. But you can’t convince the Black patients that you are better than these guys. That’s what he always took.

  Interviewer: That’s the biggest – yeah. How demoralizing that must have been too.

  Dr. Graham: Yeah. And he retired from Chapel Hill. I still talk to him. He’s my men – there were four people that made a big impact on my life from the standpoint of mentorship. Now, this happens to everybody from the standpoint – I’ll tell everybody because when I’m talking to – I do motivational speaking as well, go and talk to people about my career and what I’ve done, which was an outstanding career.

  What I tell them is that these mentors will step into your life and change the direction as to what you’re doing, just like the mentor that I had there in high school. I would have gone to A & T, which is a more male college, engineering or something like this. I’d have probably wound up in engineering. But she stepped in my life and said, “I think that what you need to do is to go to North Carolina Central.” And I listened to her, and it was a good decision.

  Then I go to North Carolina Central, and there’s Dr. Vernon Clark. And I’m gonna show you something before I leave. It’s up in my office. But Dr. Vernon Clark, I mean, he was a genius. The man was just before his time. And he is one of the greatest teachers that I’ve ever had. He could break things down, that molecular biology, he could break it down to the level that he could make a child understand. And he was passionate about it. Never married. His whole life was his career, biology. He taught up until the time they had to run him out. He was over 80 years old when he finished North Carolina Central. Over 80 years old. And had all these students.

  And what I did – and I’ll show you this upstairs in a minute – this guy had mentored hundreds and hundreds of students going into dentistry and into medicine from North Carolina Central. And he never got any recognition as to all that he had done. So, when I was up in Michigan, I thought about this. I said, “You know what? Somebody needs to recognize this man.”

  So, I called and sent letters to all the people I could get names to who were in medicine that he had trained, and dentistry. And I said, “We need to do a benefit for this man and show him our appreciation for what he’s done for us.”

  So, we had a big banquet. I had a bust made from him from this artist out of – I’ll show you that – from this artist out of – huge bust – artist done up in Michigan.

  So, we came down, and all these students surprised. And we had a big old hotel there right out from Duke. Forgotten the name of it. Must have been – but it was a beautiful band room. And we had it decorated. And probably about two-thirds of his people that he had trained in medicine and all this stuff were there, and dentistry. And he walked into the place. Man, he didn’t know what was going – he saw all these people.

  And the school had been notified. So, they videoed the whole thing from the standpoint of North Carolina Central.

  And we had this big recognition where the students just got up and just talked about how much he meant to them in their careers, okay? And then we unveiled the bust. And what I’m gonna show you here is the bust. I have a picture of it that we unveiled it, and he’s standing there. It looked just like him.

  And I mean, ultimately, what they did that same time, they had a new biology building at North Carolina Central. And what they did was to take a wing of the biology building, and it’s called the Vernon Clark wing. And they took that bust and put it out in the front of that wing with students saying how the students really loved this man.

  And so, it was just nice. It was just nice to have that for him. Because no one had ever recognized him for what he had done to all these students.

  So, he got to experience that before he died. He was still teaching at the time. He probably was in his late 70s at this point when we did this. But it was a dedication that, something I felt proud about, and something I needed to do. Because he had never had this done for him before.

  So, let me get this – I’m gonna finish here in a second. I’m gonna take this upstairs. I need to go upstairs and show you this –

  Interviewer: Yes, please!

  Dr. Graham: – this Vernon Clark.

  Interviewer: Dr. Clark was the one who told you to aim for medicine instead of dentistry, right?

  Dr. Graham: Yeah, yeah. Took me from dentistry and told me I need to be a doctor. “You don’t need to be a dentist. You need to be a doctor.”

  The other thing, now, when I got to Chapel Hill, there was Brinkhous and Dr. Roberts who were my mentors. See, I’m just saying, these people that just guided me through this career. And then when I got to Chicago, there was Dr. Wilbanks, who was chairman of the Department of Ob/Gyn at Rush University. He was a mentor. So, it’s all these people that guided me along the way and helped me. Just amazing.

  So, everybody experiences that, but you just gotta know when your mentor is there. Listen to them, and do the right thing, okay? I got [inaudible] [01:03:46] my study. So, hold on. –

  Interviewer: Can I ask you a question while you’re getting there?

  Dr. Graham: Yeah.

  Interviewer: When you were telling me about some of the changes when you were at UNC, some of the changes that Dr. James Taylor instituted about shortening the day of study, did he do those changes after you had started medical school? Or had he just done them before you got there?

  Dr. Graham: I guess he had come in the year before. When we went to medical, started, that started the year we were there, 1970. So, he had instituted that. I think he might have been there for a year and changed the whole curriculum around. By the time we came in, it was changed. And that’s what we did. From 8:00 to 12:00, and your afternoons were free. Now, obviously, you’d go to the lab and work on your cadaver and stuff like that. But let me show you this right here.

  Interviewer: Yeah, okay. Let’s see.

  Dr. Graham: I’m trying to turn it, so it flips around. I don’t wanna lose it.

  Interviewer: Oh, with the button?

  Dr. Graham: I’m just gonna turn the thing. See that?

  Interviewer: Yes! Oh, that’s him?

  Dr. Graham: That’s him. That’s his bust. You can see his bust there.

  Interviewer: I see it!

  Dr. Graham: And we raised $200,000!

  Interviewer: Holy smokes!

  Dr. Graham: Isn’t that something?

  Interviewer: Yes! Wow.

  Dr. Graham: That’s the man. But we –

  Interviewer: When did it happen?

  Dr. Graham: Huh?

  Interviewer: When did this happen, this recognition?

  Dr. Graham: This recognition probably – I’m trying to see if the year’s on here. I don’t even know if the – you know, I was still in practice. So, it was before 2006. Must have been around 2000, somewhere around 2000 at that point. Yeah. But what it is –

  Interviewer: What a wonderful thing. Yeah.

  Dr. Graham: I made an endowment of $100,000 for his group, that little group of medical students. And also, $200,000.00 goes to help those folks who are interested in medicine while they’re there at North Carolina Central, for books and help them along if they need some needs. And so, I’m trying to get others just to continue to send money into that endowment, so it doesn’t die.

  Interviewer: Yeah, of course.

  Dr. Graham: So –

  Interviewer: I have another question, going back a little back further into the past. You told me that when you started medical school in the year 1970, that was a big year for recruitment of African Americans.

  Dr. Graham: All over the country. All over the country.

  Interviewer: Did you know –?

  Dr. Graham: And not only Chap – huh?

  Interviewer: Did you know that this was going to happen the year that you applied?

  Dr. Graham: Well, yeah. When I say that, it was all over the news. Couldn’t help but – federal government’s not going to fund these schools that don’t participate in opening up their doors to more Afro-American students and so forth. That was affirmative action, and it made a difference for me, hell! It made a difference! I was not one of those kids – even though I was good at what I was doing with Dr. Clark, I don’t think they would have admitted me.

  I think Duke would admit one a year. Chapel Hill would admit one a year. There were more kids out there brighter than me that they would have taken. So, I never would have gotten into Chapel Hill, okay? I would have probably wound up going to Meha – which is not bad. I’d have gone to medical school, but I would have gone to Meharry or to Howard. – You understand what I’m saying.

  Interviewer: I do. It’s a very important…

  Dr. Graham: So, that was a –

  Interviewer: It’s an important –

  Dr. Graham: Affirmative action works. I don’t give a danggone what these folks say. All of us made it. Every one of us graduated on time. Every one of us. So. And otherwise, we wouldn’t have been given that opportunity if we hadn’t had affirmative action.

  Interviewer: Ten students. Nice. That is a very, very good recruitment season for UNC.

  Dr. Graham: Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. And as I say, eight of us came from historically Black colleges. Yeah.

  Interviewer: And going back even a little further into the past, when you were younger and studying in Germany, was it a German school, or was it an American school in Germany?

  Dr. Graham: See, what they have, they have American schools where doctors – not doctors, but soldiers – bring their families over. Just like, my daddy took his family over. So, you had American students that were there.

  And they didn’t go to German schools. They set up a school system in Stuttgart for the American kids to go to school. And they had a school bus come and pick us up and take us to school. And then they had the housing, married housing for the wives when they came over. So, many times, you could just walk to school because the school was in the same neighborhood that the housing development was in for your families.

  So, yeah. It was an American school. My mother was a teacher. She taught over there during that time. So, they had things like that as well. Girls – I mean not girls, but soldiers – some of their wives were teachers, and they taught the schools. And if they weren’t teachers, the military would hire girls in the United States and fly them over to be in Germany and give them a good salary, and they would teach from that standpoint, when they didn’t have a family that had a teacher in the family.

  Interviewer: Did you have siblings, Dr, Graham, going there with you?

  Dr. Graham: No, I grew up as an only child. And my mother adopted two girls after I left. When I left high school, she went on and adopted two girls. And that’s the kind of woman she was. One was disabled, and the other she sent to college to Johnson C. Smith there in Charlotte, who, a normal daughter. But she adopted two children after I left home. Yeah.

  Interviewer: And now, one more question. And now it’s about the present. Dr. Graham, I mean, you’ve had an amazing career.

  Dr. Graham: Yeah. Great.

  Interviewer: And I’m wondering now –

  Dr. Graham: Great career.

  Interviewer: – to go back to the intention of this project, which is to energize medical students. And I was wondering what your experience has taught you about best ways to support our present-day minority students. What can we do better?

  Dr. Graham: Well, I think one of the things is giving back, to help out, from the standpoint of like the scholarship fund that I did with Dr. Clark to help those students. A similar type thing there for the student program there in Chapel Hill.

  Now, another fellow you’re gonna talk to, Clarence Lloyd, okay? He’s a radiologist. Clarence doesn’t have a chick nor a child. Has done extremely well economically in medicine. And about two or three years ago, he gave a $500,000 endowment to Fayetteville State. That’s where he went to undergraduate school. He’s going to bequest another $500,000 when he dies. That’s $1 million, okay?

  Now, I set something up that I’m going to give North Carolina Central. And we all going back to try to – historically, that’s been a problem for the Black institutions. The students don’t give back. And we’re starting to do that now.

  So, this student program that you all have there, I’m sure that several of the alumni want those students to do well and will help fund some of the projects that they’re doing and this type thing, will give back, just the way we’re doing for the historically Black colleges, okay? Particularly people like Clarence and myself, Murphy, who was an – ER doctor and so forth.

  But in some kinda way, you have to invite us back so we can meet these students. You understand what I’m saying?

  Interviewer: Yes!

  Dr. Graham: Because we had the same thing when we were there. We stuck together and this type thing and had our little stuff. But it doesn’t seem to have been very much of that with these students. They don’t realize that the alumni can help them. But the alumni got to understand what’s going on. And find us to come back to – I know they have programs. I’ve seen some of the programs they’ve had. I think they have something in May and so forth. But they gotta make a strong effort to get some of these alumni to come back and see what they’re doing and some of the problems they’re having.

  And as we age, we will give back. That’s what we’re starting to do. I’m doing it. Clarence is doing it. And if you catch him quick enough, he might be able to assist with $100,000 to go back to these kids. I’m sure $100,000 would help them a lot! You understand what I’m saying?

  Interviewer: I do.

  Dr. Graham: So, that’s what you got to do. But they’ve got to reach out to try to get these alumni back there to meet them, to see what they’re doing, whatever, so that we can know who they are, feel their pain, and make some contributions to them while they’re there.

  Interviewer: Yeah. It’s a bridge between generations.

  Dr. Graham: Yes. You gotta do that. You gotta do that.

  Interviewer: That’s great.

  Dr. Graham: Guys have got the money. Even if it’s that, you know, when you die. You can leave something. All of us are old. All of us are going to get old. And we’re go –

  Interviewer: We are getting old.

  Dr. Graham: And you can leave something behind for these guys if we know what they’re all about, what they’re doing, and some of the battles they’re fighting there at Chapel Hill.

  So, that would be one way of getting them to come back. Whatever you’re having, make it a special thing. Make us feel special when we come back. And then you will be rewarded.

  Interviewer: Point taken. I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do next, Dr. Graham. First of all, thank you very much for taking some of your time and talking to me. This has been a wonderful interview. I’ve learned a lot. And you’re really funny. I loved talking to you.

  Dr. Graham: Funny. It’s like I need to be a comedian, dude! I need to get on television!

  Interviewer: Well, you’ve got some stories is what I’m saying. You’ve got some stories. And I mean, some were – you know what? Okay.

  So, here’s another really important thing. Some of the stuff you’ve told me is very hard, the experiences about some of these patients and the very structural things that are just racist that happened around these institutions that – I love UNC. But this project is not a rah, rah project. We know that UNC is not perfect and that its history is full of some stuff that is not okay. But the way you tell these stories, it sounds awful; and at the same time, it sounds constructive.

  Dr. Graham: Sure, so –

  Interviewer: Yeah. What I’m gonna do next is, I’m gonna take the audio, I send it to the transcriber. The transcriber does the transcription. They are probably going to miss a few things, I’m sure. Actually, the names of people are going to – and what I would like to do is to give you a call back later, in a few weeks –

  Dr. Graham: Sure.

  Interviewer: – to just go over that. I’ll send you a copy of the audio and a copy of the transcript as well, just for your records. And yeah. Oh, sorry, I also need to send you a consent form that says –

  Dr. Graham: Oh, yeah. Okay for you – I understand.

  Interviewer: Yeah. I’m gonna email that to you next.

  Dr. Graham: I’m gonna ask you a question before I forget it.

  Interviewer: Yes, please.

  Dr. Graham: Now, what are you? Are you an MD, or what are you?

  Interviewer: I’m a PhD.

  Dr. Graham: PhD. And what is your role there?

  Interviewer: I am in the Department of Social Medicine, which was created after you came here. The department was created in ’78. And it’s a group of people. I mean, it’s about 20 people. About half of us are physicians, half of us are social science types. I was trained as a historian. And I came to UNC about 11 years ago.

  Dr. Graham: Who was there before? I think there’s somebody, a Black guy had this role before. I’ve forgotten his name.

  Interviewer: Yes!

  Dr. Graham: Do you know? Who was it?

  Interviewer: Yes, I do! His name is Keith Wailoo.

  Dr. Graham: Okay, I thought so. Yeah. This is not a new – but that’s the role you’re playing now. I got you.

  Interviewer: Yeah, exactly I have Keith’s –

  Dr. Graham: Same role Keith was.

  Interviewer: Yeah. I have Keith’s job now. Because he left. He went to Rutger’s first, and now, he is at Princeton. And they wanted a historian because – and we can’t not have a historian. So, I was the one. And I have lived here in Chapel Hill now 11 years. I’m from Peru originally.

  Dr. Graham: Where?

  Interviewer: From Peru? From Peru?

  Dr. Graham: Beirut! Okay, yeah! One of the surgeons that I knew was from Beirut when I was there in Michigan. He was a hell of a surgeon. Boy, that boy could operate up a storm.

  Interviewer: Oh, wow. Oh, I said Peru.

  Dr. Graham: Oh, Peru! I thought you said Beirut! Okay Peru.

  Interviewer: I could be from Beirut. I sometimes – you know. It’s hard to tell a –

  Dr. Graham: That’s on my bucket list. I’ve got to get to Peru. We were supposed to go there a couple of years ago, and COVID stopped us from going. So, I’m going to get there before I die.

  Interviewer: Yeah, it’s a good idea not to go during these days. It’s been rough over there.

  Dr. Graham: Yeah. Yeah.

  Interviewer: But it’s my country. – Yeah. Anyway, I go there every time I can. Because most of my people are still there. But I love this project also because it’s – well, you know what? We don’t need to record this part. – Where is – stop?

  [End of Audio]

  Duration: 80 minutes

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About

Dr. James Graham was born on June 1st, 1948, in Lumberton, NC. For the first five years of his life, he was raised by his grandmother; then he relocated for a period to Germany with his father, a member of the military, and his mother, a schoolteacher. They eventually settled in Charlotte, NC where he attended West Charlotte High School. After matriculating to NC Central University, he was admitted to the UNC School of Medicine in 1970, the first year that affirmative action was implemented. That year, the UNC School of Medicine admitted a total of 10 Black students (whereas it admitted 1-2 in years prior). While attending UNC, he published a groundbreaking paper as lead author in research on hemophilia and factor XIII. Because of this research background, he was sure he’d specialize in pathology, however his interests shifted after rounding with the first Black-owned multispecialty clinic in Charlotte, NC during his third year at UNC. He then decided to pursue gynecologic oncology, matching at Duke for residency and continuing onto a gynecologic oncology fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical School in Dallas, TX. Following residency, he worked at Rush University in Chicago for 10 years, then worked at Hurley Hospital in Flint, Michigan for his last 17 years as a practicing physician. Dr. Graham maintains that mentorship, hard work, exposure, and opportunity have greatly impacted the trajectory of his career.