Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was born in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1856.

When he was 11, his father died and his mother left him to fend for himself.

He eventually made his way to Wisconsin where he became apprentice to a physician. He went on to enroll at Chicago Medical College and when he graduated in 1883, he opened his own practice.

Although his practice started out slowly, Dr. William's reputation grew because of his remarkable skills.

In 1890, he met Emma Reynolds, a young black woman who aspired to nursing, but had been refused admission by every nursing school in Chicago.

Williams's response: "We'll start a hospital of our own and train dozens and dozens of nurses." Within 18 months, Provident Hospital, the first in the United States operated by blacks, opened with 12 beds. Emma Reynolds and six others enrolled in the first class of black nurses in America.

Two years later Williams made medical history, when he performed the first open-heart surgery in US history. Newspaper headlines screamed: "Sewed Up His Heart! Remarkable Surgical operation on a Colored Man."

In 1894, Dr. Williams co-founded the National Medical Association, an African American counterpart to the segregated American Medical Association.

In 1913 he was appointed associate attending surgeon at Chicago's Saint Luke's Hospital which until then had been an all-white institution.

The same year, he became a charter member, and the only African American among the 100 founders of the American College of Surgeons.