Editor's
note: MCG has established a Harper/Rumph Scholarship for
African-American medical students in honor of the school's first two
African-American graduates. To make a donation, contact Rob Zeyfang, director of
development for the School of Medicine, at 706-721-4002 or 800-869-1113.
Frank Rumph’s marathon mission that fall day in 1965 began with a strange request: “Will you sub for me today?”
His wife was baffled, but she agreed. Her husband seldom missed a day of work and had certainly never before asked her to take his place in the classroom. His request was so urgent, his behavior so uncharacteristically manic, that she barely managed to nod before he had rushed out the door.
He ran to his car and drove from his home in Macon, Ga., to Atlanta University over two hours away. He had no appointment but pleaded with a secretary to let him meet with the science department chair for five minutes, 10 minutes tops. The secretary balked, but the chair overheard his plea and invited the young man into his office.
Next came his second request of the day: Would the chair consider letting him enroll in graduate school?
No. The application deadline had just passed.
But Frank Rumph wasn’t prepared to take no for an answer. He begged the chair to consider making an exception. He was desperate to enroll, he’d graduated as one of the top five students from Fort Valley State University a year earlier, he’d been president of the Honor Society, he’d driven all this way ... please?
The chair was sympathetic but said he couldn’t consider the request unless he had the Fort Valley transcripts in hand that day. Frank Rumph called the registrar’s office of his alma mater and sputtered his request.
Yes, they could give him his transcripts ... but only in person.
He told the chair he’d be back later that day, then sprinted to his car and drove to Fort Valley. Once at the university, he parked illegally, ran breathlessly into the registrar’s office, shouted his hellos to all the familiar faces and picked up his transcripts. Then he drove back to Atlanta ... a five-hour round-trip.
Upon perusing the impeccable transcripts—and making a mental note about this young man’s incredible tenacity—the chair decided that an exception was indeed in order. Frank Rumph was welcome to enroll.
Except that ... he had no money. His nascent teacher’s salary was so modest that he and his wife had to eat with his parents on weekends. He hadn’t factored graduate school into his budget. Yet here was his chance, and he was broke.
The chair hastily referred him to the financial aid office, where the director was so impressed with his transcripts and letters of recommendation that he was offered a full scholarship on the spot.
By the time he returned to Macon that night, he had penned his resignation from his teaching position and was officially an Atlanta University student. Not bad for a day’s work.
Frank Rumph is accustomed to making every minute count. His hard-working parents passed down a work ethic that he embodies to the bone. Neither of his parents had a high school diploma, and opportunities for African-Americans were scarce, to say the least, in rural Georgia a half-century ago—but they were determined to provide for their three children while instilling values that would promise brighter days ahead.
Son Frank did not disappoint, excelling in school while cultivating a strong sense of social justice. Why, he wondered, did he have to enter through a side door when he took his sick relatives to the doctor’s office? Why were they then whisked to a shabby waiting room for “coloreds”? Why did his dentist seldom bother with anesthesia when treating African-Americans? And why was tooth extraction the only available service?
!["My counselor told me I'd be competing against every high-achieving black student in the nation for the very few spots available in the tow [traditionally black] medical schools. It was assumed I'd go to a black medical school." Dr. Frank Rumph](win-spr07-images/triumph-quote.jpg)
“I
had a sense of the unfairness very early on,” he said.
His burning desire was to become a physician. He wanted to serve people in general and African-Americans in particular. “I had no second choice. I wanted to be a doctor and I didn’t want to be anything else.”
But the racism that helped propel his goal also seemed destined to ground it. He assumed his top grades at Fort Valley State University would open the door to medical school. He was wrong.
“My counselor told me I’d be competing against every high-achieving black student in the nation for the very few spots available in the two [traditionally black] medical schools. It was assumed I’d go to a black medical school.”
And that suited him fine ... except he couldn’t get in. He was placed on the alternate list instead. He thinks he ultimately lacked the connections to nab a coveted spot. “Someone from Fort Valley offered to put in a good word for me, but I felt that my record should speak for itself.”
He was devastated when his applications were rejected. “I thought, ‘Welcome to the real world.’ I was extremely angry.”
He accepted a teaching position in Jeffersonville, Ga. and resolved to make the best of his circumstances.
But only months into his job, news trickled through the grapevine that he would soon be one of the area’s many sons to be drafted into military service. Many in the African-American community felt that his increasingly outspoken commitment to civil rights would hasten his fate.
“I had become very visible and vocal in a small town,” he said. “I feel I was targeted.”
His heart sank. He’d seen too many guys return from Vietnam in body bags to have any illusions about war. And despite his best efforts, he hadn’t been able to quell his dream of medical school.
So on that fall day, he “skipped” the classroom for the first time, asked his wife to substitute for him, drove to Atlanta University and enrolled in graduate school. His draft notice arrived days later, but he was granted a deferral based on his status as a student.
Feeling the bullet he dodged was both figurative and literal, he threw himself into his studies with unprecedented zeal. “I worked night shifts at UPS and went to school all day,” he said. “I completed the course work for the master’s degree in biology with a concentration in physiology.” But before he could complete his thesis, he was offered a spot in one of the medical schools that had previously turned him down. “I told them I was not interested.”
He was, however, interested in the Medical College of Georgia. “It was my brother who mentioned MCG,” he recalled. “He said, ‘Why not? The only thing you have to lose is the application fee.’ I said, ‘They don’t accept black students,’ and my brother said, ‘Maybe you’ll be the first.’”
A reality check was in order when Dr. Walter G. Rice, dean of the MCG School of Medicine from1960-69, sat down with Frank Rumph and John T. Harper in fall 1967. Dr. Rice felt the first two African-Americans invited to enroll in the MCG School of Medicine should be prepared.
“He warned us that we would be unwanted, unwelcome and harassed,” Dr. Rumph recalled. “I said, ‘I’m a Georgia resident, my family has lived in Georgia since they were slaves, and I’m coming.’”
John Harper, now an orthopedic surgeon in Conyers, Ga., felt the same way. Neither were strangers to hardship; they were ready for the challenge.
Dr.
Rumph reflects on his MCG education with equanimity, choosing neither to
demonize nor romanticize the experience. Racism was occasionally blatant, but
more often subtle. It was the parties he wasn’t invited to ... the practice
tests that no one bothered to share with him ... the averted eyes when partners
were selected for lab classes.
He took the slights in stride. Hey, he’d grown up in rural Georgia; ostracism was as familiar to him as a broken-in pair of slippers. And besides, who needed friends? He was there to study.
And he did have support. “I can’t say enough about Dr. Rice,” he said. “He was a true friend and a non-biased man. I’d cry on his shoulder a lot and he always responded genuinely.”
He ultimately found support in the classroom as well. When a professor seemed to unfairly target him, Dr. Rumph was stunned when his classmates came to his defense. “I can’t tell you how much that meant to me.”
As his education unfolded, he felt increasingly at home on campus. “The last two years were much better than the first two,” he said.
And in spring 1971 came the payoff: his lifelong goal of a medical degree.
Next came an internship at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, five years of service in the U.S. Air Force and a residency in anatomical and clinical pathology at Emory University in Atlanta. He anticipated a private practice but was offered a job as director of state public health laboratories for Georgia’s Division of Public Health. Soon after beginning the position, he realized he hadn’t just signed on for a job. He had embarked on a calling that would last throughout his career.
“Once I got into public health, I became emotionally tied to it,” Dr. Rumph said. “I remember my mentor saying, ‘Here, you can help more people by a few good decisions than a practicing physician could help in his whole lifetime. But nobody will know it and you’ll get no pats on the back.’ That didn’t matter to me, as long as I knew it.”
The timing ensured Dr. Rumph’s lasting legacy: America’s AIDS epidemic hit shortly after he began his job. He was named the first director of the state’s HIV/AIDS program and soon added adult programs and community health to his areas of responsibility. “I was in a position to shape public policies that affected everyone’s health. I could make a real contribution. That meant more to me than making money.”
He held weekly community meetings about AIDS and oversaw the distribution of funds devoted to the disease. He sank his teeth into issues such as teen pregnancy and cancer prevention. His dedication to his work was so consuming that only gradually did it dawn on him that something subtle, almost imperceptible, was unfolding: His skin color, for the first time in his life, had become a non-issue. “Once people realized I knew what I was doing, most of the racism—even covert racism—went away,” he said.
The respect he garnered was heartfelt, particularly when people realized that “I had no ulterior motives and I wasn’t trying to play politics,” Dr. Rumph said.
It seemed fitting that his life came full circle at this point. In 1991, he was offered a job that brought him back to the city where he broke racial ground. He became director of the East Central Health District, which included the Richmond County Health Department. If he accepted the job, he would be back where his life in medicine had begun: Augusta, Ga.
“I turned it down at first, but I was shown around town and I actually enjoyed the day. There were a lot of nostalgic emotions that weren’t all bad. But I needed to know how the Boards of Health would respond to the thought of a first black director. Thirteen out of 13 voted to hire me. That was encouraging.”
The post included a faculty position at MCG and an opportunity to see the grass-roots effects of the statewide policies he had overseen for more than 10 years. “I found that some of our policies didn’t work quite as effectively on the county and district level as it appeared from the state perspective,” he said. “For instance, state resources for many of the programs weren’t adequate at the county level. I went about trying to change the policies to make my district run more effectively.”
He also rolled up his shirtsleeves to improve lives individually as well as societally. For instance, when toxins from a local plant threatened the well-being of nearby residents, “I got my black bag and went house to house examining people and giving advice. That kind of interaction made me feel like a part of the community.”
He also realized that his mentor was mistaken when telling him years earlier to expect little appreciation for public health service. “I got plenty of pats on the back,” Dr. Rumph said, adding with a laugh, “more than I needed.”
He oversaw the establishment of new Health Departments on Laney-Walker Boulevard and in south Augusta, obtained a new district office complex, obtained buildings for environmental health and disaster preparedness and revamped public health programs during his tenure, ensuring his efforts would long outlive his directorship. When he retired in late 2005, the Richmond County Health Department was named in his honor.
“Naming this facility for Dr. Rumph is not something the Board of Directors is giving to him,” said Richmond County Board of Health member Gene Hunt during the naming ceremony. “It was something that he has more than earned.”
Then-Mayor Willie Mays lauded Dr. Rumph’s tireless advocacy of the Augusta area’s most vulnerable citizens. “Thank you for making those causes first and at the top of your list,” he said, “and for always being there to provide that level of service and expertise.”
Jane Oglesby, facility administrator for the health department, called him a mentor and role model. “He has positively touched the lives of all of us here,” she said.
And “retirement” was definitely a misnomer. Dr. Rumph went on to become chief executive officer of the 29-county East Georgia Cancer Coalition.
“I like the new challenge, but it’s still basically a public health initiative,” he said, citing cancer prevention and early detection as priorities. “It has a public health focus. We’re building infrastructure and trying to gather financial resources while also carrying out programs. The idea is to bring the necessary people together to focus on a particular outcome.”
The coalition is focusing on the biggest cancer killers in Georgia: lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers. “One priority,” he said, “is addressing disparities across the board,” such as African-American cancer patients having worse outcomes than whites.
Dr. Rumph enjoys spending time with his wife and four mostly-grown children, but retirement does not factor into his plans. “I don’t believe in this retirement business,” he said. “What do you do? Play golf? Go fishing? That’s not a part of my life. I want to be in a position to work and make a contribution. I think the longer you use your mind, the longer you live and the healthier you are. Plus, I’m enjoying myself too much to consider retirement. I’m happy to say I don’t think I would do anything differently.”
- Christine Hurley Deriso
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