Graduated Harvard College 1948, Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1952
Chester Middlebrook Pierce (1927-2016), Harvard College Class of 1948, Harvard Medical School Class of 1952, was emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and emeritus professor of education at the Harvard School of Education. He was the first African American full professor at Massachusetts General Hospital, and practiced in the Department of Psychiatry for over 25 years. Dr. Pierce was also the Past President of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American Orthopsychiatric Association, and was the founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America. In 1970, Dr. Pierce was the first to use the term “microaggression” to describe insults and dismissals he regularly witnessed non-Black Americans inflict on African Americans. Dr. Pierce was also a consultant for Sesame Street.
“Well, it was a time of, you know, a lot of social ferment around issues of race. And people were organizing and talking in all sorts of ways. And so it was not unusual for a group to get together, like… black psychiatrists.”
“Lots of places I know wouldn’t have given me the latitude to pursue things I wanted to pursue, and did, such as, you know, spending lots of time in Antarctica… But Harvard is indulgent.”