Black history in Appalachia

When Kristin Overstreet first visited Kimball, West Virginia, in February 2020 in her new role as Appalachia program coordinator for Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Great Lakes, she didn’t realize she was stumbling into forgotten history.

Overstreet, a former history teacher, found that land recently purchased for the MCC Appalachia Build (formerly SWAP) program once held the Henrietta Dismukes Hospital and Nurses’ Home, one of the largest privately owned African American hospitals in the country at the time.
 

Dr. Henry Dodford Dismukes, an African American physician and surgeon, founded the hospital in 1930. Named for his mother, it served African American patients in the region until 1932. 

The hospital was remarkable for its time, including all the latest technology, 50 beds for patients and five nurses that resided in the nurses’ home. However, the founding and then closing of the hospital only two years later has not been widely told.  

Research shows that Dr. Dismukes was approached by Bluefield Sanitarium, a white hospital in nearby Bluefield, that contracted with him to pay $3.50 per day to treat every African American person who was sent to Henrietta Dismukes Hospital. However, as patients were sent from Bluefield Sanitarium to Dismukes Hospital, Dr.  Dismukes didn’t receive the promised payments.

Dr. Dismukes filed a lawsuit against Bluefield Sanitarium for breach of contract for $150,000, marking the largest suit by an African American filed against a white corporation at that time. He was the first recorded African American man to take a white corporation to court for a breach of contract in U.S. history (The Pittsburgh Courier, 21 Feb. 1931). Dr. Dismukes did not win the state Supreme Court case, but he was allowed $4,070 in damages by the lower court. His appeals for additional funds were not granted (Bluefield Daily Telegraph, 4 April 1931). This financial strain, coupled with the onset of the Great Depression, led to the hospital’s permanent closure in 1932. 

MCC had signed the deed to purchase the land in December 2019 for use with the Kimball site location of Appalachia Build, MCC’s home repair program. By the time Appalachia Build acquired the land, the building that was once a hospital, and later apartment complex, had burned down. The building that remains today had served as the nurses’ home, a residence for nurses who worked at the hospital.

MCC formed a committee made up of local residents and MCC staff to discuss how to proceed in honoring and acknowledging this history. They have been working to locate descendants of Dr. Dismukes and the nurses who worked at the hospital, along with Dr. Harrison of the Harrison Memorial Hospital.

On August 16, 2022, Kimball Mayor Adam Gianato declared August 16 to be “Dr. Dismukes Day” to recognize the important contributions of Dr. Dismukes to the community while also lamenting the racism and injustices that he experienced.

Growing out of the community interest in the Dismukes project, MCC began hosting the LOST Stories project in November 2022. Once a month, community members gather at the African American World War I Memorial in Kimball with the goal of highlighting Black history in McDowell County. Each month there is a speaker who shares their story about growing up in Appalachia along with time for discussion.

In October 2023, MCC Appalachia hosted its first learning tour in Kimball, West Virginia. Participants visited various sites connected with Dr. Dismukes, heard from local speakers, learned about MCC’s work to preserve Black history in the area and attended the Dismukes Gala.

MCC staff continue to work with community members to uncover more of the history of Dr. Dismukes and his legacy, including getting the location recognized in the National Register of Historic Places. A historical marker was unveiled on the property in August 2024.

MCC continues to honor and share Dismukes history while gathering supporters for the project.

Each year in August we hold our annual Dismukes Fundraising Gala in Welch, West Virginia. Funds raised at the gala will go towards rehabilitating the building that previously was the Henrietta Dismukes Nurses' Home and has fallen into disrepair after decades of vacancy. As proposed by our community steering committee, the Nurses Home will be repurposed as a community learning center.