08-02-2025
A look at University Health's history: Segregation, connected tunnel
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Next year, University Health, formerly Truman Medical Center, will celebrate 50 years in its current building.
Its roots, however, stem back more than a century, including 50 years of segregation and secrets buried below that eventually helped bring the hospitals together.
For decades 22nd Street was the divide between General Hospital #1 and General Hospital #2. One was for white, the other for Black.
The Kansas City flood of 1903 brought evidence Black residents may need their own hospital and doctors.
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'People were so paranoid of hospitals and they had such a bad reputation in terms of experimenting on African-Americans people would, even though they were injured or having heart attacks, they wanted to be served at home,' Kevin Willmott, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind 'From Separate to Equal,' said.
'After a new General Hospital was built in 1908, the old hospital became the hospital for the Black community. After a fire at that hospital, in 1930 an eight-story hospital was built across the street from present-day University Health, called General Hospital #2.'
Alvin Brooks, who was a police officer at the time, remembers delivering a baby in a cab outside the hospital's doors and bringing an overdosing victim he transported back to life.
'The doctor said 'he's gone, he's gone.' I said 'Doc are you sure.' He said 'Yeah he's gone,'' Brooks recalled.
'I started hitting him in the back and he said Brooks, he said I was dead but I could hear everything you were saying.'
General Hospital #2 over time became a source of pride. It had Black nurses and attracted some of the nation's top Black doctors. But didn't necessarily have top equipment.
'While General #2 was a building and a healthcare system that the Black community was grateful for, it didn't necessarily meet the standards of General 1,' Candice Brooks, University Health Community Relations Officer, said.
'Even though General #1 had the better things, when they wanted to they went over to #2 and took things,' Willmott said.
Willadine Johnson, 84, delivered her first child at #2 and last child at #1. It was when she lost a child born preterm she'd learn of the two hospitals' underground connection.
'She (a nurse) said 'There's a tunnel and I will take you there so you can see her' and she did,' Johnson explained.
By 1957, facing budgetary constraints of operating two hospitals, General Hospital began integration that was completed by the time they opened Truman Medical Center. The community safety net hospital has never shied away from its past, working with Willmott on the documentary From Separate to Equal and detailing its story on its walls
'I think it is an important history to remember and to tell,' Willmott said.
'I would say that our rich history really helps to pave the path for what we are today,' Candice Brooks said.
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