John Hume Miller, MD
(Class of 1903)

Jefferson’s second African American alumnus, Dr. John Hume Miller, was born in 1877 in South Carolina during Reconstruction. His father, an educator by training, was elected the U.S. Representative from South Carolina, 1889-1891.

The Congressman’s son graduated from Lincoln University in 1899 and later that year moved north to attend classes at JMC. Upon graduation he established his practice, as well as a pharmacy, in Chester, PA. He maintained his practice for over 40 years, returning to Philadelphia upon his retirement in 1947. In 1953, while visiting family in Charlestown, South Carolina, Dr. Miller died at the age of 77.

Like so many Jefferson graduates, one of Dr. Miller’s descendants attended his alma mater. In 1992, nearly a century after his own graduation, Dr. Miller's great granddaughter, L. Kyrin Feagans-Dunstan, earned her MD from Jefferson Medical College. She dedicated her yearbook entry to her great grandfather.