The historically African American medical schools have been at the center o
f medical education for African American physicians in the United States si
nce the Howard University College of Medicine opened in 1868. Although ther
e were more than a dozen African American medical schools established durin
g the next few decades, as propriety or church affiliated schools, only two
survived the Flexner Report in 1910. Howard University (1868) and Meharry
(1876) survived and trained generations of African Americans. These two sch
ools educated approximately 85% of all African American physicians whereas
the majority medical schools educated 15% for more than half of the twentie
th century. As the result of a series of lawsuits filed by the National Ass
ociation for the Advancement of Colored People, civil rights legislation an
d affirmative action programs, the numbers of the schools that now admitted
African Americans increased and the total numbers of African American medi
cal students increased when discrimination was prohibited in 1966. The perc
entage of African American medical students attending predominantly white i
nstitutions increased by 25% in 1948, by 47% in 1968, by 61% in 1983 and to
84% in 1990. Two additional predominantly African American medical schools
were established: the Charles R. Drew Medical School, Los Angeles (affilia
ted with the University of California, Los Angeles) in 1966, and Morehouse
Medical School, Atlanta, which admitted its first class in 1978. Recent cou
rt decisions prohibiting schools from considering race as factor in admissi
on and the end of affirmative action programs have resulted in a drop in to
tal minority enrollment. The historically African American medical schools,
that admitted approximately 15% of the African American medical students d
uring the era of affirmative action programs, will see this percentage decr
ease as the majority institutions admit fewer African American medical stud
ents and minority students. In the United States this trend already has bee
n observed in admission data and graduation data for 1996 and 1997.