Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 2022
- Class:
- 1957
Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, Augustus “Gus” White III learned early on about the challenges faced by African-Americans in the Jim Crow era. White’s entire life has been one of “overcoming.” As one of the few black students at Brown in the mid-1950s, Gus White excelled in athletics, the classroom, and leadership positions on campus.
White began as a Cub wrestler on College Hill before gravitating to the gridiron. With a knack for historical moments, White scored a touchdown in the first-ever Ivy League game in 1956, a 20-0 Brown win over Columbia. He also scored the winning touchdown in the Cornell game, Brown’s first-ever win over the Big Red.
Gus earned the Class of 1910 Trophy for outstanding academic achievement, and was invited to a tryout with the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals. He declined in order to pursue a medical career.
White’s record of surmounting racial barriers is inspirational. He was the first African-American medical student at Stanford, where he was president of the student body. At Yale Medical School, he was the first black surgical resident. In Vietnam, where he was an officer, White was awarded a Bronze Star. He worked as a trauma surgeon in Vietnam, but it was his volunteer work with leprosy patients which was the most meaningful experience for young Dr. White.
White’s subsequent career as a world-renown practitioner and educator (Distinguished Professor of Medical Education and Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and Harvard Medical School) provided a platform for Gus to become a national leader in promoting ethnic and gender diversity in the medical field. In his quiet but powerful way, he has pushed back existing color lines in all areas of medicine, causing colleague Doug Jackson, MD to call Gus “the Jackie Robinson of orthopedics.” Always a team player, dating back to his Brown days, his compassion in caring for others is one of his hallmarks. His seminal publication, Seeing Patients: Unconscious Bias in Healthcare helped to pull back the curtain of cultural bias in medical practice.
More recently, Gus teamed with Jon Land ’79 on a motivational book focusing on overcoming adversity (Overcoming: Lessons in Triumphing Over Adversity and the Power of Our Common Humanity). White credits his many life experiences for providing him with material for this book. White notes that it “evolved from my ongoing life experiences. I’m impressed by our common humanity., and I’ve had that re-emphasized throughout my life.”
It is axiomatic that Gus White is the ideal recipient of the inaugural Joukowsky Humanitarian Award. His life of service to humanity is long, deep, and exemplary. Little did Gus or anyone else realize that back in the seventh grade, a kitchen table conversation with his mom about going to school in New England would help shape his life, and in the process, help change the world. Simply put, Gus White is a gentle humanitarian. Gus poses a rhetorical question, “Why do we want to correct this unconscionable reality suffered by some of our fellow humans?” His response is; “because we are a nation and a people of high humanitarian ideals.”
Gus and his wife Anita live in Weston, Mass. and have three daughters - Alissa, Atina and Annica.
