The Medical Committee for Civil Rights (MCCR) was founded in 1963 by Dr. Walter Lear to address racism in the American Medical Association (AMA). Dr. Lear led a demonstration of physicians at the 1963 AMA convention in Atlantic City, protesting their policies that did not require southern medical societies to integrate. This lack of policy enforcement denied hospital privileges to African American physicians throughout the Deep South.
On August 28, 1963, the MCCR participated in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, represented by a coalition of more than 200 medical professionals. Due to a lack of funding, the MCCR closed later that year. The organization was succeeded by the Medical Committee on Human Rights in 1964, known as the medical arm of the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. MCHR provided medical support civil rights workers and volunteers during Freedom Summer, the march from Selma to Montgomery, and other demonstrations throughout the movement.