1910s - Medical Care for Minorities

From its earliest days, the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium maintained a small free clinic for the benefit of minorities and the poor. A Dallas city ordinance approved in 1916 mandated the complete segregation of residential areas, churches, schools, places of public assembly and places of public amusement. This meant that hospitals had to maintain separate facilities for minority residents. Fortunately years earlier, Col. C.C. Slaughter had the foresight to see the need for a facility to properly care for minorities. In 1914, a new three-story Clinic building became an integral part of the sanitarium, providing 100 beds solely for the benefit of minority patients.