Descendants gather to honor 1st black US doctor, see tombstone put on his unmarked NYC grave

Descendants of 1st black US doctor mark NYC grave

NEW YORK — Descendants of the nation’s first professionally trained African-American doctor have gathered at his previously unmarked New York City gravesite to lay flowers on his new tombstone.

James McCune Smith had been buried in an unmarked grave since his death in 1865.

White descendants who only recently learned they had a black ancestor honored him Sunday at his gravesite in Brooklyn’s Cypress Hills Cemetery, where baseball player Jackie Robinson and actress Mae West are buried.

Smith’s great-granddaughter Antoinette Martignoni says she feels connected to him in a whole new way. She read a poem by Maya Angelou at the gravesite. A relative from New Haven, Conn., discovered the family connection while taking a course on the history of blacks in New York.