Today Dr. Torre is telling us about a local black physician, Dr. Ezekiel E. Nelson. Dr. Nelson was born in Louisiana in 1881. He got his doctorial and medical license at Boston University and while doing that work, he saw Buffalo in the summer of 1917. He worked as a dining car worker. Dr. Torre says he loved it so much that after he got his medical degree, he brought his wife and moved here in the 1920’s. Dr. Ezekiel was passionate about helping people. Dr. Torre says while doing his travels in the early 1920’s Dr. Ezekiel E. Nelson met Marcus Garvey and was inspired by the idea of self-help, of growing the economy for black people by using the community as a way to try and build it. After a while of being inspired by those concepts he decided to help found the Buffalo Cooperative Economic Society which ended up being a bastion of support for the Buffalo community.
S.U.N.Y. Buffalo State has the Monroe Fordham Regional History Center. If you would like more information on this visit https://library.buffalostate.edu/archives/mfc
