ALPHA RHO BROTHER WILBUR MICHAEL BYRD ENTERS OMEGA CHAPTER OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC.
Dr. Wilbur Michael Byrd, 77, of Nashville, Tennessee, passed away on February 19, 2021 in Nashville at Ascension St. Thomas Hospital Midtown.
He was born in Galveston, Texas to Wilbur and Sybil Munchus Byrd on December 26, 1943. He attended high school in Ft. Worth, TX and entered college early at age 14 and graduated from Morehouse College, Atlanta, GA. After graduating from Morehouse, Dr. Byrd earned his M.D. degree at Meharry Medical College in 1968. He was a "Renaissance Man" who loved books, art, architecture, music, trains, travel, photography, theater, and was a Board Certified Obstetrician-Gynecologist and health policy expert.
Pictured above: Meharry Medical College, Nashville, Tennessee.
He served two years as a General Medical Officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps, serving on active duty in the Vietnam War where he was a Battalion Surgeon and was awarded the Bronze Star medal. He completed his OB-GYN training at Hubbard Hospital of Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN. He later earned a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree at the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA.
He was involved in early sit-ins and civil rights direct action led by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers who rallied students in Atlanta and across the nation during the 1960s, recalling the energy and excitement that inspired his later work championing civil rights in medicine and professional arenas. He was a colleague of medical and public health path breakers such as Dr. Louis Sullivan, Dr. Richard Allen Williams, and Dr. David Satcher, a college classmate — reflecting how the “Black Medical Ghetto” produced leaders and health practitioners who transformed the greater society while cultivating excellence under extreme conditions of lack and inequity.