Dr. Susan McKinney Steward: African-American Hero

Susan Marie Smith was born in Weeksville, Brooklyn, New York on March 18, 1847 to Sylvanus and Anne Smith. She was the fifth of the seven Smith children. She had a unique mixed heritage; European, African-American and Shinnecock Indian. She grew up on the family’s pig farm in Brooklyn; her parents were successful pork merchants. As successful African-Americans they socialized with the elite of Brooklyn. At a young age she studied organ and later became the organist for the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) in Brooklyn.

In 1867 at 20 years of age, Susan Marie Smith entered the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women in New York City. After three years in medical school in March 23, 1870, she graduated valedictorian. Dr. Smith was the first African American woman to formally enter the medical profession in New York and the third in the nation.

After her graduation from Medical School Dr. Susan McKinney set up her first practice in her home in Brooklyn, New York. She was hard working, modest and compassionate. As the word of her talents spread, Dr. McKinney’s practice drew interracial clientele across the social barriers. She was extremely successful as a pediatrician; treating all kinds of childhood diseases. She then opened her second clinic in Manhattan. While practicing medicine in New York she founded the Women’s Royal Union of New York. She was actively involved in the Kings County Homeopathic Society.

In 1871 she married her first husband; a South Carolina Minister William G. McKinney, with whom she had two children; William and Anna. William followed in his father’s footsteps and became a clergyman and Anna a school teacher. In 1881 Dr. Susan McKinney confounded the Women’s Hospital and Dispensary in Brooklyn, which later became the Memorial Hospital for Women and Children. She also served on the staff of her alum mater New York Medical College and managed the Home for Aged colored people. She continued to play the organ and directed the church choir at her church; Brooklyn Bridges Street Church. 1894 her husband, Mr. McKinney became sick and passed away.

Two years after her first husband passed away in 1896, she married US Army Chaplain Theophilius Gould Steward. Reverend Steward was the chaplain of the colored infantry known as the Buffalo soldiers. Mrs. Steward moved with her chaplain husband to Nebraska, Montana and Texas treating many African American Soldiers. Their next stop was AMEs Wilberforce University in Ohio where Dr. McKinney Steward was offered a job as the college physician.

Dr. McKinney lived in the time where there were calls for social reform. She gave public lectures about medicine health and nutrition; she was also involved campaigns calling for female suffrage and temperance. She was active in missionary work around the city and was a prolific writer of both secular and sacred writings. In 1911 she presented a paper in London at the Universal Race Congress titled “Colored American Women”. She also read a paper on “Women in Medicine” in 1914, before the National Association of Colored women’s Club in Wilberforce, Ohio.

Dr. Susan Marie McKinney Steward passed away in 1918 at Wilberforce University at the age of 71. She was laid to rest in her birth town of Brooklyn in the Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. Her memory continues to be honored; In 1974 The Susan Smith McKinney Junior High school was named for her; The Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society was founded in her honor in 1974.