A Splendid Physician

Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson brings quality healthcare to Tuskegee, Alabama

For four long years, Booker T. Washington had been searching for the right person to act as resident physician at his Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. He finally reached out to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania to see if they could recommend anyone.

Halle Tanner Dillon was just the woman for the job. Washington wrote to her personally to request she take on the position. She headed south in the thick of summer, August 1891, just a few months after earning her MD. Several women of color had studied at the WMCP since its founding in 1850, but that year, Halle was the only Black student in her class.

Halle was born in Pittsburgh in 1864, the first daughter of Benjamin Tucker Tanner and Sarah Elizabeth Tanner. The couple were active, prominent members of the community; Benjamin was a bishop in Pittsburgh’s African Methodist Episcopal Church. The children were well educated and Halle helped her father publish the church’s newspaper, the Christian Recorder.

At 22, Halle married Charles Dillon. Two years later, the couple welcomed a baby. But Charles died suddenly, leaving Halle a widow at 24. Needing a way to support herself and her child, she headed off to medical school. After three years, she graduated…