Tolbert Small

The Tolbert J. Small civil rights fight started before he entered the medical profession. In 1961 he “raised hell and high water” when he co-founded the student chapter of the NAACP at the University of Detroit. He helped raise money for Mississippi freedom workers as a member of Friends of SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee). He spent a week at the 1964 Democratic Convention trying to get the Democrats to recognize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

This was the beginning of a Journey that took him to the west coast and eventually to the doorstep of the Black Panther Party. Bert heard about all the social and community services the BPP were offering and wanted to volunteer his medical services. Once in Oakland, Small hooked up with Oakland Direct Action Committee, headed by civil rights activist Mark Comfort, who introduced Bobby Seale and Huey Newton to the Black Panthers emblem used by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization in Alabama.

One day in 1970, Small told his friend Comfort that he planned to offer his medical services to the party.

“I left my phone number with June Hilliard; the next day the FBI called Dr. Nelson (Small’s boss at Highland Hospital), and told them I was working for the Black Panther Party,” Small recalled with a smile. “But they called David Nelson, the wrong Dr. Nelson.”

He became the Black Panther Party physician in 1971 although never officially joining the organization. His service to the Black Panthers lasted four years. He made house calls on both sides of San Francisco Bay and visited party members imprisoned at San Quentin and Folsom State prisons.

Bobby Seale and Huey Newton founded the Sickle Cell Anemia Research Foundation in which Bert became the medical director. Bert acted as a link between the Black Panther Party and sickle cell awareness. “Bobby [Seale] came out with the term ‘Black genocide,'” Small said about how the founders of the Black Panther Party referred to sickle cell disease.

The following excerpt comes from the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism “Sickle Cell: The Last Health Care Frontier for Black Lives

“Small took out editions of The Black Panther, the official newspaper of the party, with cover stories about sickle cell. The Black Panthers opened community health clinics, including one in Berkeley that Small helped start, the George Jackson Free Clinic, which was one of the first to offer sickle cell screening.

“He was one of the rare doctors actively taking care of adult sickle cell patients,” Vichinsky said about Small. “He remains a historical figure for sickle cell disease over the decades.”

As the Black Panthers grew to 44 chapters and 14 free clinics across the country, they continued to advocate for sickle cell awareness. Each clinic screened for sickle cell, and some of the chapters without clinics did so as well. “They were the first wave, nationally, of sickle cell awareness. Given their resources, they did more than anybody,” Vichinksy added.

“They were very popular at the time. It was kind of the heyday of sickle cell [awareness] in my mind,” said Keith Quirolo, the former director of Pediatric Sickle Cell Program and Apheresis Program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland.

Working with the Black Panther Party, Dr. Tolbert Small helped spread awareness and treatment of sickle cell.

The grassroots approach within the community paid off: Small believes that the Panthers’ high profile in mainstream media — their main image being Black folks carrying guns, not the social service programs such as free breakfast and free health-care — helped put pressure on Congress and President Richard Nixon to sign off on legislation to fund sickle cell centers nationwide.”

Robeson event

On may 9, 1998, the Communist Party USA's Peoples Weekly World held a centennial festive tribute celebrating the life of Paul Robeson. Speakers and performers included Communist Party vice chair Jarvis Tyner, co-hair , retired ILWU international rep. Abba Ramos, co-chair communist Marilyn Bechtel, Owen Marron, Alameda Central Labor Council, Martin del Campo, San Francisco Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Berkeley mayor Maudelle Shirek, dancer Jackie Artman, Northern California Young Communist League co-chair Amie Fishman, Joe Johnson, trade unionist and personal friend of Robeson, poet Dr. Tolbert J. Small, and singers Anthony J. Smith and David Winters (American Federation of Musicians).

Among the events more than 100 co-sponsors were Senate president Pro Tem John L. Burton and Oakland mayor Elihu Harris.

Endorsed Communist Party fund raiser

Peoples Weekly World, September 11, 1999

In September 1999, Tolbert Small, MD, co-sponsored a Communist Party USA fund raising event in Berkeley. Rep. Lynn Woolsey co-sponsored the same event.

Conference on Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the 90s

The Conference on Perspectives for Democracy and Socialism in the 90s was the Committees of Correspondence's first national conference held in Berkeley, California July 17-19, 1992.

Workshops that were held at the conference on Saturday, July 18 included:

Health The challenge to our health. What next in the struggle for national health care? The fight against aids and infant mortality and for a rational system of preventative medicine for all

• Marilyn Albert, R.N., New York State Nurses Association
• David Cohen, Intl. Rep., UE, Springfield, MA
• Dr. Tolbert Small, Harriet Tubman Medical Center, Oakland
• Mildred Williamson, AIDS health worker, Chicago
• Dr. Peter Orris, Governing Council, American Public Health Association, Chicago

China

In 1970, and against the U.S. government’s restrictions, the Black Panther Party accepted an invitation to visit China. Huey Newton was heavily influenced by Maoist philosophies and wanted to see for himself a “free and liberated territory with a socialist government” so in 1971 a group from the BPP took the journey. Tolbert Small was part of the Panther group making the trip.