Portrait of Vivien Thomas

In April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Black Americans were furious at his murder, with protests and rioting following. White America was astounded at the anger and frustration being vented. In Baltimore, Hopkins called on the Maryland National Guard to protect its medical campus. The following year, Hopkins’s top surgeons contributed toward a portrait to be painted of the man who had taught them how to conduct surgery. The painting was not sponsored by Hopkins. Vivien Thomas was, of course, deeply touched by the gesture, but he was concerned that he was being used to improve the image of Hopkins. Hopkins had remained segregated well after other medical schools and hospitals no longer were (or never had been) and many in Baltimore’s Black community were openly hostile toward Hopkins.

Today, Hopkins ballyhoos this image of Vivien Thomas as representing Hopkins’s respect for him. At the time, however, Thomas was told that Hopkins was unwilling to put his portrait on display. Every day for two years, he saw the abandoned painting, wrapped in brown paper, sitting on the closet floor of his office. Finally, the head of the surgery department, Dr. George Zuidema, along with Dr. Alex Haller, pushed Hopkins to hang the portrait.

It was a wonderful moment for Thomas in February 1971 when his portrait ceremony was finally held, and he received at least three standing ovations during the presentation. Hopkins, however, failed to send its photographer to record the occasion, although two Baltimore newspapers did. The photo here is from the Baltimore Afro American. The reluctance of Hopkins to display his image continued to weigh on Thomas’s mind.