It was with sadness and deep regret that I learned of the change in name of Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Center to CareSTL Health.
Anyone familiar with the history of health center knows that it owes its very existence to the vision and effort of Myrtle Hilliard Davis.
In 1969 Davis wrote the grant which resulted in the construction of what was then known as St. Louis Comprehensive Health Center. With the exception of a one-year stint as the CEO of a health center in Boston, Davis worked tirelessly at the center to ensure, above all else, that residents of the community had access to primary, preventative, and prenatal care of the highest quality, without regard to the economic station of the client.
For almost 20 of those 30 years, she served with excellence and distinction as the president and CEO of St. Louis Comprehensive Health Center. Put very simply, one didn’t think of the center without thinking of Myrtle Hilliard Davis.
Upon her retirement in 2001, the Board of Directors voted to rename the health center in her name. It was a decision that was applauded throughout the St. Louis community. Davis’ retirement was further recognized by a mayoral proclamation, and she would posthumously receive a star on the Gateway Classic Walk of Fame.
Davis is an icon in the St. Louis community and beyond. Her work to provide healthcare equality was recognized nationally as she met with President Gerald Ford and First Lady Barbara Bush during her career.
All of the honors and recognition bestowed upon Myrtle Hilliard Davis were well earned and richly deserved – especially the renaming of the institution to which she devoted her life’s work.
The reasoning behind the name change offered by the current Board of Directors and CEO Angela Clabon seems disingenuous at best. If there were in fact issues of name confusion across the various entities under the Myrtle Hilliard Davis umbrella, the logical solution would be branding efforts that reinforced that all of the entities are locations of Myrtle Hilliard Davis Comprehensive Health Center. Instead, Clabon suggests that changing the name entirely will somehow eliminate any existing confusion. It’s an explanation that simply doesn’t make sense.
If Clabon is a student of history, she surely realizes that the road of opportunity she currently travels was paved by pioneers such as Myrtle Hilliard Davis, Frankie Muse Freeman, Ina Boone, and Margaret Bush Wilson. We all owe a debt of gratitude to these pioneers for breaking through the glass ceiling of racial and gender discrimination.
You don’t repay that debt by stripping the name of a phenomenal African-American woman from the landmark institution she created.
Drew Hilliard Davis is an attorney at law and son of the late Myrtle Hilliard Davis.
