Lewis Napier Bass, Jr., M.D.

After graduating from KU School of Medicine in 1945, Dr. Lewis Bass, Jr. became the first Black resident in pediatrics at KU Medical Center. He would go on to become an assistant professor of pediatrics and director of the sickle cell anemia clinic at KU.

In 1967, while he worked as an assistant professor of pediatrics, Bass took on a new role as clinical director of the Children and Youth Project at KU Medical Center. This clinic helped serve children in northeast Kansas City, Kansas. In 1971, he resigned from the Children and Youth Project to become the first director of the Model Cities Health Service Program, part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Model Cities program, in Kansas City, Missouri. That clinic would later evolve into Swope Health.

Bass practiced pediatrics in Kansas City, on both sides of the state line, for 33 years until his retirement in 1988. He was part of the third generation of physicians in his family, following in the footsteps of his father, Dr. Lewis Napier Bass, Sr., and his grandfather, Dr. John Silas Bass.

Kansas City Star article on a newly opened neighborhood clinic, April 30, 1967 (see transcript below)

Kansas City Star article on the Family History of Healing, February 25, 1999 (see transcript below)

Kansas City Star article on the Model Cities Comprehensive Health Center, November 16, 1971 (see transcript below)

The Kansas City Star. Sunday, April 30, 1967

A NEWLY OPENED NEIGHBORHOOD CLINIC for children at 1975 North Fifth street in Kansas City, Kansas, is operated by the University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Lewis Bass, shown examining a patient at right center, is in charge of a 6-person staff. One of his dietitians, Miss Patsy Cram (left), measures the height of a patient. The clinic is intended to provide health care for about 8,000 underprivileged children in the northeast part of the city with the aid of a $218,771 grant from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

Debut of Health Center

By Melvin D. Lewis a Member of the Star’s Staff

The Kansas City Star. Tuesday, November 16, 1971

About 200 persons were on hand today to witness ceremonies marking the official opening of the new Model Cities Comprehensive Health Center at the First Baptist Church, 2310 Linwood.

Mayor Charles B. Wheeler, Jr., assisted by Cornelius Reed, chairman of the health corporation board of directors, James I. Threatt, executive director of Model Cities, and Mrs. Lillie Mae Williams, consumer representative of the health corporation, presided at the opening ceremonies.

Reed, in a pre-ribbon cutting ceremony talk, cited the problems encountered in getting a site for the health center before the First Baptist Church offered its facilities and expressed appreciation that the center is now a reality.

Mayor Wheeler told the audience that he was pleased to see the various Model Cities beginning to develop. The idea of Model Cities is to heave citizen participation, he said, and he felt his open door policy was a contributing factor to citizen participation.

Threatt said he had been looking forward to the opening of the center for a long time but, sometimes, the road ahead seemed long and rocky.

Center Dedicated: Dr. Lewis Bass, Director of the new Model Cities Comprehensive Health Center located in the First Baptist Church, 2310 Linwood, is shown addressing the crowd that attended ceremonies today marking the opening of the facility. (Star photo by Adolph Briscoe)

Family history of healing: Medical beginnings that trace back to a runaway slave

By Kelly Garbus, Special to The Star

The Kansas City Star. Thursday, February 25, 1999.

Southern plantations, slavery, beatings and family separations could not stop an 11-year-old runaway slave who was destined to become one of the nation’s first professionally trained doctors of African-American descent.

Not only did he succeed, but he paved the way for his descendants: A son, grandson and a great-grandson also became physicians. Their pictures are on a posterboard at the Richard Allen Cultural Center in Leavenworth.

It is the stuff history books should be made of but aren’t, said Phyllis Bass, who is married to a grandson of the runaway youth.

“This is not black history, this is American history,” said Bass, who is volunteer director of the Richard Alen Cultural Center. “All of this happened right here.”

And what better time to tell it than Black History Month?

It started with John Silas Bass, who graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville in 1878. His descendants included a son, Lewis Napier Bass Sr., who graduated Meharry in 1913; a grandson, Lewis Napier Bass Jr., who graduated from the University of Kansas Medical School in 1945; and a great-grandson (Phyllis Bass’ son), Elliot L. Bass, who graduated from KU Medical School in 1980.

John, born in December 1850, was the fourth of eight children born to Nancy and Irvin Bass, slaves in Giles County, Tenn.

When John was 11, the family was split up, as were other slave families on the plantation. John was hired out, and, along with another boy, was beaten regularly. John ran away one night after being sent to the barn to fetch a tallow light. He could hear a beating going on inside the house as he headed for the barn.

Wearing a beaver hat and carrying the tallow light, John rode off on a stolen horse named Fanny. He remained in hiding for three months before being returned to the original plantation owner, who, in turn, hired him out as a body servant to a colonel in the Confederate army.

Seventeen years later, he would graduate from medical school. Two years later, in 1880, he received a hero’s welcome in Chattanooga for successfully fighting a yellow fever epidemic. He received a key to the city and was paraded around in horse and buggy.

“From that time on, the majority of his patients were white, and that was unheard of back then,” said Elliott Bass, who practices at State Line Family Care in Kansas City.

Eventually, John’s father, mother and other family members were reunited after the Civil War, but danger was far from past. Bass’ father, Irvin, a shoemaker, was killed in Tennessee as he attempted to protect his family from the Ku Klux Klan some time between 1868 and 1888.

Phyllis Bass said Klan members charged the house and broke down the door. Several of the Bass children were hiding in the house. Irvin fired his Colt pistol wounding several of the Klan members, including the leader, who shot back and killed Irvin.

The cap-and-ball pistol used in the shooting, the tallow light and john’s medical diploma – the oldest existing diploma from Meharry Medical College – are in the family’s possessions.

John moved to Iola, Kan., in 1902 and in 1918 battled an influenza outbreak. He developed his own medicinal expectorant with an appalling taste that defied description. A recipe for cough medicine was a little more palatable. It was made of bourbon, rock candy, lemon, glycerin and honey. Family members said some people faked coughs just to have a swig.

John never grew rich as a country doctor. He came along at the time when they would give you a chicken for pay,” said Phyllis.

John Silas Bass died of pneumonia in 1923 in Iola. He was 73.

One of his sons, Lewis Napier Bass Sr., also became a physician. He practiced in Pittsburg, Kan., where he drove a Model T to coal mines to treat miners and their families.

Lewis Bass J., a retired physician who lives in Johnson County, reminisced about his father, who died in 1980.

“I never heard him be angry or boisterous,” Lewis Bass Jr. said, “I always knew him to be genteel and professional and respectful of everyone’s individuality.”

Lewis Bass Jr. was one of the first black interns at KU Medical Center. He specialized in pediatrics and later had a reputation as a tough instructor at KU. His legacy endured long after he retired, according to Elliott Bass.

Elliott Bass and Lewis Bass Jr. are cousins. Elliott Bass’ family lineage goes through another son of John Silas Bass, not Lewis Napier Bass Sr.

Elliott began compiling his family’s history when he entered college. He grew up hearing about John. He knew well the respect everyone had for his great-grandfather. Elliott said he didn’t think he would ever be smart enough to follow in his footsteps. But destine called, and Elliott was accepted into medical school.

The pressure was on to uphold the family tradition. “To me it was an honor to be able to follow after him,” Elliott said of his great-grandfather. “We think we have hardships now. But ours are nothing compared to what they had.”

This tallow light was used by John Silas Bass to run away from home when he was 11. The bowl was used to burn animal fat.