Who was the first African American to earn a medical degree?

Question

Who was the first African American to earn a medical degree?

Answer 1

1837

First African-American doctor: Dr. James McCune Smith from the University of Glasgow, Scotland) (See also: 1783, 1847)

Answer 2

That might be a difficult question to answer.  It wasn't until the early 1900's that the profession became what we know it today.  This is when the professionalization of jobs such as medicine, law, and dentistry became prominent with the creation of the ADA, the AMA, and the ABA.  This restricted to a great extent the amount of people who entered the field, by leaving it to these agencies to certify them.

Before this, people became doctors by apprenticing themselves to doctors and learning the trade.  So, if you are wondering about the first African-American to be a doctor in the United States, I'm sure there were some who acted as doctors from the first time they came to the U.S. as slaves.  They most likely took care of people who were ill as best they knew how, and taught others what they know.

That said, the first African-American to practice medicine officially in the United States was Dr. James McCune Smith.  He travelled to Scotland to escape the intense racial oppression in the U.S. and got a medical degree there in 1837.  He came back to the U.S. and practiced in New York, where he was welcomed as a hero of the black community.