(July 8, 1855 – July 20, 1912)

from The Greenwood Project

Born a Giles County slave, Robert Boyd came to Nashville after emancipation. He worked half-days for his meals while attending Fisk. In 1880 he enrolled in Central Tennessee (later Meharry) Medical School, graduating with honors in two years. He also graduated from Central Tennessee Dental College (1886), studied gynecology at the University of Chicago (1890), and received a Master of Arts (1891). He launched a busy medical practice, taught gynecology and clinical medicine at Meharry (1893 until his death), opened a teaching hospital (1900), and was chosen president of People’s Savings Bank and Trust (1909). He was a founder and first president of the organization that became the National Medical Association. Deeply concerned about the high mortality rate among African Americans, he wrote and lectured widely on the subject, meeting with local citizens to teach them how to avoid illness and combat tuberculosis. He was so widely beloved in Nashville that his funeral had to be held in Ryman Auditorium.

Photo of Dr. Robert Fulton Boyd published in 1902. (Photo is in the public domain)

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The Greenwood Project is a series of 160-word biographies of individuals who lie at rest in Mt. Ararat and Greenwood cemeteries, two historic African American burial grounds in Nashville, Tennessee. The project, which began in September 2014 (and is still available on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064806156276), shares the stories of more than 300 consequential individuals, primarily African American, who changed the course of city, state, and national history through their words and deeds. (All biographies were written by Kathy Lauder unless otherwise noted.)