Working Benevolent Society Hospital

Although it stopped operations in 1948, before I was even born, the Working Benevolent Society Hospital was regarded as “one of the most modern institutions in the South for colored people” at the time of its opening in 1928. During the Civil Rights movement, we used the small, old hospital as a meeting place to organize protests.

Mrs. M.H. Bright served as the first superintendent, and the hospital continued to serve black community members for twenty years. The hospital was later torn down in 1948 because it was considered a fire hazard.

In 1938 Dr. E.E. McClaren bought nearby property on Wardlaw Street to provide private care to members of the Black community with no place for proper treatment. After the main hospital was torn down, this shelter became the main clinic in 1949.

Despite desegregation efforts of Greenville hospitals through the second half of the twentieth century, African Americans still get unequal medical treatment due to wealth differences with white people and the lack of Black doctors. The short existence of the Working Benevolent Hospital was one step forward, but a unified health system doesn't necessarily represent "progress."