Solomon Carter Fuller

Solomon Carter Fuller was born in Monrovia, Liberia, the grandson of formerly enslaved parents who had emigrated to Liberia, and travelled to the United States for his education, eventually earning his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1897. He became one of the first Black psychiatrists in American medical history at a time when the field offered almost no professional opportunities to Black physicians.

Fuller travelled to Munich, Germany, to study directly under Dr. Alois Alzheimer, and became one of only five researchers worldwide invited to study under him during the period when Alzheimer first identified the disease that would later bear his name. Fuller conducted his own significant original research on the disease's pathology, translating Alzheimer's foundational German-language papers into English and helping introduce the condition to American medicine.

Fuller spent much of his career at Westborough State Hospital in Massachusetts and taught pathology at Boston University School of Medicine for over three decades, though he was passed over for a full professorship despite his research record, a decision widely attributed to racial discrimination. He continued practising and teaching, including working with patients despite losing his eyesight later in life, and is remembered today as a foundational figure in both American psychiatry and Alzheimer's research.