Dr. Percy Corbin

Written by Megan Zalecki
This post was originally published to our social media platforms on Feb. 3, 2022

Dr. Percy Corbin

In honor of Black History Month, on this #ThrowbackThursday we honor Dr. Percy Corbin, who was the first Black doctor in Pulaski, VA. Dr. Corbin was well known for his efforts to save lives during the 1918 influenza pandemic, providing medical care to both Black and white patients.

But did you know that Corbin was also an advocate for equalized education in Pulaski during segregation? He partnered with Dr. Chauncey Harmon in urging the local school board to provide equal pay for Black teachers, whose salaries were a fraction of what their white counterparts earned. Corbin and Harmon also convinced the school board to build a new facility, equal to local white schools, to house Calfee Training School after the original structure burned.

While the new Calfee Training School was rebuilt for Black elementary students, the school board decided to bus Black high school students to Christiansburg Institute (CI). When Corbin's son, a student at CI, was not granted the same access to extracurricular programs because the bus home to Pulaski left immediately after classes, his father worked with NAACP attorneys to file a lawsuit against the county school board, the decision for which ultimately recognized the inequalities between CI, a Black school, and other white high schools in the area. Though the board ultimately decided not to provide better facilities for Black high school students at the time, this case was a critical step in the NAACP’s fight for desegregation, leading up to the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case in 1954.

We honor and thank Dr. Corbin for fighting tirelessly to make Pulaski a more just and equitable place.

Sources:
Tripp, N. & Dictionary of Virginia Biography. Percy C. Corbin (1888–1952). In Encyclopedia Virginia. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/.../corbin-percy-c-1888....
Jenna Nichols, “"Doctor's fight changes community" 1 of 2,” Calfee Training School Museum Digital Archive, https://calfee.omeka.net/admin/items/show/189
Jenna Nichols, “"Doctor's fight changes community" 2 of 2,” Calfee Training School Museum Digital Archive, https://calfee.omeka.net/admin/items/show/190