By Steve Halpern
This morning I read an obituary of Dr. William G. Anderson by Clay Risen in the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was 98 years old. Anderson was raised in the outskirts of Albany, Georgia. Because of the Jim Crow laws Anderson went to school in a historically Black university. He then served as a medical corpsman during World War II. Eventually Anderson received a doctorate degree in osteopathy from Des Moines University in Iowa. He did a residency in Flint, Michigan and settled in Albany.
Dr. Anderson was not allowed to practice in the one hospital in Albany because he was Black. He did house-calls, oftentimes to homes that lacked electricity and running water. He once delivered a baby outside illuminated by the headlights of his car.
Then in 1961 young activists from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee came to Albany to organize the movement. In a 2019 interview Dr. Anderson reflected on the effect those young people had on him.
“I came out of my office and, after watching these kids be intimidated, I went and started marching.” “They weren’t marching for themselves: they were doing it for myself, my family, my patients, and my community.”
Over the course of a year, the Albany police arrested 1,200 people who protested Jim Crow segregation. Dr. Anderson was one of those who was arrested and spent a brief time in prison. This gave him the distinction of being a convicted felon.
In 2025 Dr. Anderson wrote his memoir: The Making of a (PARDONED) Felon During the Civil Rights Movement in America: The Physician Who Helped Heal American Democracy.
Dr. Anderson went on a West Coast speaking tour and was interviewed on the NBC news program Meet the Press. James J. Kilpatrick asked Dr. Anderson if the protesters “invited” their arrests.
Dr. Anderson responded: “Yes,” “If expressing your constitutional rights is inviting arrest, then yes.”
Dr. Anderson eventually moved to Detroit, Michigan where he became the first Black surgical resident in the city. He taught at Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine. He became the first Black President of the American Osteopathic Association.
Donald Trump claims he wants to “Restore Truth and Sanity to American History”
I read Dr. Anderson’s obituary shortly after President Donald Trump issued a report titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Trump argued that the museums of the Smithsonian Institution present a “divisive race-centered ideology.”
Well, history is not an ideology but a record of the facts. Historical facts can not change. Certainly people, even with advanced degrees, can ignore historical facts. Conclusions can be made while ignoring essential facts. However, any child can report on facts that others choose to ignore. Those children can make highly educated people look like fools.
James W. Loewen wrote his book published in 1995 and 2018 titled: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. In this book, Loewen documented all the misinformation contained in about 90% of American History textbooks. Why did the authors of these textbooks deliberately falsify the history of this country? The answer is the same as President Trump’s attempt to further distort the history of this country. This is to glorify the history and deny the unimaginable horrors of the past.
We need to be aware of the life story of Dr. William G. Anderson. We also need to be aware of thousands other stories that document how the United States government has trampled on the rights of people who lived here, as well as people who lived all over the world.
Instead of glorifying the history of this country, there is another consistent theme to our history. That is, if we dare to struggle, we can indeed dare to win.
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