Lincoln Laconia (L. L.) Burwell (1867-1928) was an African American physician, pharmacist, and entrepreneur who played a central role in improving rural health care for Black residents in the Alabama Black Belt. In the late 1890s, he expanded his medical practice by opening Selma‘s first Black-owned pharmacy and, in 1907, founded the Burwell Infirmary — the city’s first Black hospital. During the Jim Crow era, Burwell gained national recognition for his medical research and advocacy for expanded access to health care for African Americans.
Burwell was born on October 25, 1867, in McKinley, Marengo County. Burwell’s parents, Charles and Amanda Burwell, struggled to raise five children, four sons and a daughter, as they emerged from the horrors of slavery without land or personal wealth. Burwell’s parents sent the eight-year-old to live with an older brother, Charles Burwell Jr., in Perry County. Although the Burwell brothers also faced enormous economic hardships, Charles made significant sacrifices to ensure that his younger brother attended school.
In 1884, as a student at the Alabama Baptist Normal and Theological School (present-day Selma University), he juggled the intellectual demands of college-level courses with the many manual-labor jobs needed to sustain his enrollment. He graduated as a valedictorian of the Selma University class of 1886.
The growing affluence of Black middle-class communities produced both a supply and demand for Black health care providers. In 1882, Shaw University, a historically black university in Raleigh, N. Car., opened Leonard Medical School, the nation’s first medical school to offer a four-year curriculum. Several members of the Alabama Colored Baptist State Convention, the organization that supported Selma University encouraged Burwell to pursue a medical degree. In 1886, Burwell enrolled there and compiled numerous academic achievements, including becoming the first student to complete the four-year program in three years and the first to earn a double degree in medicine and literature.
After graduation, Burwell opened a medical practice in Selma. Around 1889, he built a home near Selma University that also served as his medical office. Two years later, Burwell married Lavania Richardson of Hamner, Sumter County, who had come to Selma to attend the Baptist university and to become a Baptist missionary, educator, and choral instructor. The Burwell’s raised two daughters, Almedia L. Burwell and Elezora L. Burwell.
In the early 1890s, Burwell opened the first Black-owned pharmacy in Selma, which was destroyed by suspicious fires in 1897 and again in 1913. It was here that Burwell trained Black pharmacists, and several opened their own pharmacies across Alabama.
Burwell played a central role in the Black hospital movement in Alabama. In the 1890s, Burwell enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and earned a postgraduate degree in medicine. Despite being one of the best-trained physicians in Alabama, he often struggled to provide care for his Black patients because of racial discrimination.
In 1907, Burwell opened the Black Belt’s first Black-owned, operated, and staffed hospital. The Burwell Infirmary was a 14-bed facility staffed by Black doctors and nurses. The lack of similar facilities elsewhere drew Black patients from across the Black Belt to the Burwell Infirmary. The hospital’s surgical center also provided Black physicians with critical learning opportunities and practice to hone their skills. Burwell trained Black physicians and nurses, who often relocated to neighboring Black Belt communities to establish similar health care facilities. Burwell Infirmary remained the primary Black hospital in Selma until 1922, when Edmundite Missions opened the Good Samaritan Hospital.
Although Burwell promoted professional and educational opportunities for women, his views on women’s reproductive health mirrored the patriarchal attitudes of most male-dominated early twentieth-century physicians. Burwell vehemently opposed a woman’s right to physician-performed abortions. He shared his opinion at several national medical association meetings that abortions and contraceptives were destroying Black women’s health and the Black community’s ability to “reproduce a strong, healthy race.”
On March 6, 1928, Burwell died after suffering a stroke and was buried in Lincoln Cemetery in Selma. Burwell Infirmary remained in operation until 1966, when the facility became a retirement home. Burwell’s home on Anderson Street in Selma was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 2015 and the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
