Pastor Ted Wilson condemns the 1943 act of denying medication to an African American at Washington Sanitarium

Pastor Ted Wilson, the president at the General Conference at the Seventh-day Adventist Church has condemned the 1943 act of racial segregation against an African-American woman who was denied medication at the Adventist Washington Sanitarium health facility.

The Lucy Byard Recognition Event included the unveiling of the painting of Lucy Byard

While at the event that recognised Lucy (Lucille Byard) at South Asian Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, Maryland, Elder Wilson expressed remorse for the act of sending away a fellow Seventh-day Adventist woman who wanted treatment from the church’s health ministry facility.

“This was a reprehensible action and should never have happened since as Christians we are to serve and treat people with respect, dignity, love, and care as Jesus did,” Elder Wilson remorsefully wrote on his Twitter account on Friday evening.

Elder Wilson called the event of 22nd September 1943 “a very important event that helped to bring about a correcting of a very sad chapter in the church” in the presence of Lisa Sweeney-Walker, a grand niece of Lucy Byard.

Lisa Sweeney-Walker, a grand niece of Lucy Byard, emotionally pauses for a picture beside the portrait of Lucy Byard

Elder Wilson urged Adventists to embrace reconciliation, arguing that it’s part of the Adventist three angels’ message, especially where it calls for the true worship of God by all people regardless of who they are.

“We are to be part of God’s ministry of reconciliation as outlined by Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:18-19. This is part of the three angels’ messages pointing people back to the true worship of God and family living in connection with Him” he noted.

The event that saw the announcement of new scholarships for African-American nursing students was organised by the Adventist Health Care and the White Oak Medical Center, an outgrowth facility of the Washington Adventist Hospital where Lucy was denied health services.

The Genesis

According to the Encylopedia of the Seventh-day Adventists, Lucy was born on 22 September 1877 in Petersburg, Virginia, to parents who were both born into slavery over a decade before the emancipation of African-Americans brought by the American Civil War.

Lucy did not go beyond the second year of high school, marrying Charles W. Lewis in Pennsylvania in 1899 and later moved to New York City where her husband became a chauffeur of a wealthy family.

In New York, Lucy become a Seventh-day Adventist at the age of 25 in 1902, becoming one of the few black Adventists in the city moreover instrumental in preaching to many African-Americans in the city.

After two decades of barrenness, the husband Lewis died at the age of 40 in 1922, leaving her alone until six years later on 23rd September 1928 (the day after her birthday) when she married a 58-year old twice-widower with five children James Henry Byard at the First Harlem Seventh-day Adventist Church.

At the age of 66 in 1943, Lucy developed liver cancer which the couple decided to be treated at Washington Sanitarium, asking a fellow black pastor Jeter E. Cox at Bethel Seventh-day Adventist Church to write a letter of introduction they would present to the church hospital.

Pastor Cox exchanged letters and information about the coverage of medical bills with the Washington Sanitarium administrators who accepted to admit Lucy.

Unfortunately, when they got there on Wednesday 22^nd September 1943 (her birthday), the hospital refused to receive them, citing that it “was against the law of the State of Maryland to admit coloured people into the Sanitarium”.

The Encyclopedia of the Seventh-day Adventist quotes the letter the husband James sent to Pastor Cox as below:

We, after much effort, arrived in Washington by rail and went directly to the [Washington Adventist] Sanitarium. I went to the office and informed them that I was Mr. James Byard, of Jamaica, Long Island, and that Elder Cox had made reservations for my sick wife. The attendant acknowledged my reservation, went out and spoke to my wife and proceeded upstairs. He returned shortly and called me into the office, and told me that he regretted to say this, but it was against the law of the State of Maryland to admit coloured people into the Sanitarium.

I, of course, was stunned, for my wife had been looking forward with much anticipation to going to this particular Sanitarium, because she felt that she would be among her own people. There would be an understanding among them that she could not expect in an outside hospital.

In fact, her hopes were so high that her health was much better than it had been for days, and she even suffered the tiresome and painful train ride because of the expected destination. I warned the attendant of my wife’s condition, and reminded him that she needed immediate attention; also that I was not acquainted with any hospital in Washington, D.C., hoping that he might examine her and find out her critical state, but to no avail. I was utterly confused and tried to get in touch with you, but was unsuccessful. The attendant recommended me to Freedman’s Hospital and assured me that she would be accepted there. He called a taxi, told the driver the hospital to take us to, and my wife and I were driven away.

The Encyclopedia of the Seventh-day Adventists further states that “If what James said was true—that Lucy’s ‘hopes were so high that her health was much better than it had been for days’—then her spirits undoubtedly sagged after she was turned away by ‘her own people’”

Lucille Byard succumbed to liver cancer at Freedman’s Hospital on 30th October 1943.

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