Searching for Dr. Harris

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The narrative focuses on Dr. J. D. Harris, an African American physician who navigated significant societal changes while serving as a contract surgeon during the Civil War and later with the Freedmen's Bureau. Born in a slave state, Harris's journey is remarkable, particularly as he learned to read despite literacy laws against Black individuals. His early medical career, predating the establishment of Howard Medical School, underscores the barriers faced by African Americans in medicine and the gradual dismantling of those obstacles in the 1860s.