History UnderfootAtlanta
  • Church & institution
  • Segregation
  • 1892 to the civil-rights era
  • City of Atlanta

Grady Hospital and 'the Gradys'

The public hospital kept Black and white patients apart for decades. Its present building was built with separate white and Black wings joined by a hallway, so Atlantans spoke of 'the Gradys'.

See it on the map All Segregation records

The record

Grady opened in 1892. Its second hospital, Butler Hall (1912), was for whites only, and Black patients were placed at the Atlanta Medical College. The current facility was built as a segregated institution: Wings A and B, facing the city, served white patients, and Wings C and D, facing the other way, served Black patients, linked by Wing E. From 1945 to 2008 the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority ran it.

Today: Grady Memorial Hospital, still the city's public hospital, on Jesse Hill Jr. Dr.