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Black History Month Tours Spotlight Overcoming Historic Health Care Barriers

Evan Jones,

AARP Virginia

Published March 11, 2026

AARP Virginia

As recently as the 20th century, African-American people living in southwest Virginia didn’t have a hospital to attend to their health needs. Even doctors like Isaac Burrell were denied treatment at the whites-only hospitals. So, in 1914, when Burrell developed gallstones, he was loaded onto a baggage cart, then onto a train for Washington, D.C. and its Freedman’s Hospital — where he died shortly after surgery. Burrell’s passing became the impetus for black physicians in Roanoke to create a hospital for their patients.

That is just one of many stories of local African-American medical history, many not well-known, offered in tours arranged by AARP Virginia throughout Black History Month at the Harrison Museum of African-American Culture in Roanoke. The tours coincided with the museum’s current special exhibit and fit in nicely with AARP’s Black History Month emphasis this year on health matters of the mind, body and soul.

“It's astounding the things that were accomplished here,” said Britney Flowers, the museum’s resident genealogist and public historian. Among the many other achievements, she said, were establishment of a hospital soon after Burrell’s death, and named in his honor, creation of the first African-American rescue squad in southwest Virginia and establishment of a program at a segregated school that educated graduates for immediate placement as nurses.

“It’s a very rewarding thing just to be able to talk about this history,” Flowers said. “It's so unknown and to just be excited about what happened, how it happened.”

AARP offered four such tours in February. “AARP volunteers in Roanoke and across Southwest Virginia have worked diligently to design Black History Month events which resonate with the public,” said Community Outreach DirectorBrian Jacks. “We’ve had great success with in-person tours which spotlight aspects of history which may have been overlooked in the past.”

Flowers said this particular exhibit and tour emphasized persistence, accomplishment and hope — while not overlooking the many challenges that African-Americans endured during centuries of enslavement and the Jim Crow-era that followed. “We absolutely mention it within our walking tour, but we try to highlight what was actually being built.”

See a video report of the tour here: