A bright kid from a modest family, Edgar Duncan knew he was going to college.
He knew he'd strive for a more solid life, aiming beyond the steeltown roots of Monessen.
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Edgar Duncan and his wife have raised three sons and sent them all off to college: Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale. (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette) |
What he didn't know was that he'd make history.
But, when he left home in 1950 and headed to Duquesne University, that's just what he did.
At college, Duncan excelled in his studies. But outside the classroom, against the backdrop of a changing society, he found other lessons.
Like learning that the four R's -- being the right person, in the right place, at the right time, and being ready -- could send you far.
The combination propelled him into being the first black student to graduate from Duquesne University with a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and the first black graduate of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.
And, two decades before the outspoken Joycelyn Elders was confirmed as the first black U.S. surgeon general, Duncan, then 39, quietly ascended to the rank of assistant U.S. surgeon general. It was 1972 and he was also the first pharmacist promoted to the post, one rung away from being the U.S. chief of public health.
Duncan spent five years as assistant surgeon general. He improved health care among Native Americans and the rural and urban poor by launching community health-care centers and promoting improved dental care.
In the years since, Duncan has written a long list of accomplishments, but nothing gives him more pride now than his work with Pitt's Partners in Education Consortium. The four-year-old program encourages young black Americans to pursue health professions.
"This is natural for me," said Duncan, explaining that his work with the students is an extension of his public health duties.
"There I was helping the underserved and disadvantaged," said Duncan, "and with this position I'm still trying to level the playing field."
He has definitely made a difference, said Creighton Bryan, 26, who recently graduated with a master's in public health.
"With every student he was encouraging us and reminding us that school came first," said Bryan.
"Dr. Duncan kept us on the straight and narrow because he made us think about what was important."
Tall with rich brown skin and black-and-white hair, Duncan has trunks of memories.
They begin with his Mon Valley childhood. Duncan's father, William, was a Renaissance man. He worked as a tailor, but also played football and the violin and wrote for the NAACP's Crisis Magazine. His mother, Willie, a Tuskegee Institute graduate, passed on her love for education to her six children. The post-Depression segregation never kept the couple from urging their children to be all they could be.
Duncan, his high school valedictorian, graduated magna cum laude in 1954 from Duquesne. He worked odd jobs as a soda jerk, pharmacy apprentice and prescription deliverer to earn money for college.
A Duquesne professor noticed Duncan's pluck and thought he was sharp enough to become a physician.
That observation whetted Duncan's appetite for hospital pharmacy and later guided him toward a position as a hospital administrator in pharmacy. From there, he decided to apply to Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health.
After an interview before an all-white panel, he was accepted.
In his first term, his grades took a dive.
"I didn't know how difficult it was to do," said Duncan. "If somebody had told me, maybe I would not have done it."
But he earned his master's degree in 1956 and stepped into his professional life.
He did a stint in the U.S. Public Health Service's Commissioned Officers Corps. The quasi-military service allows doctors, pharmacists and dentists to enlist for a minimum of two years of active service and in doing so, be exempt from military service.
For the next 44 years, as his career grew, he zigzagged from New York to Chicago to Washington, D.C., and eventually back to Pittsburgh. He earned a Ph.D. in higher education administration from Pitt in 1990.
In the meantime, Duncan's family was also growing. He has been married since 1954 to Lauraine Thorne. Duncan credits his wife with raising their three sons and sending them all off to college. Harvard. Dartmouth. Yale.
Away from the office, Duncan listens to jazz and African American spirituals. He is a storyteller.
A favorite is how he worked hard in school because he was mediocre in sports.
"I was good in school, he said. "So I enjoy what I do. I'll retire only when I have to."
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