In the smoky heart of industrial-era Pittsburgh, as soot-darkened skies signaled the city’s booming promise, a young African American man named John Paul Golden quietly made history.
In 1888, Golden graduated from the Western Pennsylvania Medical College, becoming the first Black person to earn a medical degree from the institution that would become the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He would go on to serve communities across lines of race, geography and class, forging a career that reflected not only his intellect and compassion — but the enduring possibility of what medicine, education and grit could achieve.
Golden, perhaps, lived in the shadows of other famous figures, but today newspaper clippings, public records, bank documents, city directories, independent research and conversations with historians can shine a light on his remarkable life…