CHARLOTTE ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — Every year tens of thousands of people walk the sidewalk along South Mint Street to visit Bank of America stadium but what many people don’t know, or notice is the history that lies beneath and just outside the stadium; a historical marker recognizing Good Samaritan Hospital which was once one of the only Black hospitals in North Carolina.
“This marker is very, very, very important memorabilia for me,” said 84-year-old Lillian Herron.
Herron was a nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital during the 1960s when everything was segregated.
“I got my first job, June the 1st, 1961,” said Herron. “I was taken under the wings of the nursing staff, all of the doctors. I learned more than I could ever imagine.”
The privately owned Black hospital opened on September 23, 1891, and while things were separate, they certainly weren’t equal.
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“The only thing that was really, really sort of disgusting to me, our Black doctors were not up to par as well as they could’ve been,” Herron said.