where
he became acquainted with the first educated Negro he had ever met. The
Negro was Robert Bruce Bagby, then principal of the only school for
Negroes in Indianapolis. "The same old building is standing there today
that housed Bagby's institution then," he declares.

Dr. Buckner recalls that when he left Bagby's school he was so low
financially he had to procure a position in a private residence as house
boy. This position was followed by many jobs of serving tables at hotels
and eating houses, of any and all kinds. While engaged in that work he
met Colonel Albert Johnson and his lovely wife, both natives of Arkansas
and he remembers their congratulations when they learned that he was
striving for an education. They advised his entering an educational
institution at Terre Haute. His desire had been to enter that
institution of Normal Training but felt doubtful of succeeding in the
advanced courses taught because his advantages had been so limited, but
Mrs. Johnson told him that "God gives his talents to the different
species and he would love and protect the negro boy."

After studying several years at the Terre Haute State Normal George W.
Buckner felt assured that he was reasonably prepared to teach the negro
youths and accepted the professorship of schools at Vincennes,
Washington and other Indiana Villages. "I was interested in the young
people and anxious for their advancement but the suffering endured by my
invalid mother, who had passed into the great beyond, and the memory of
little Master Dickie's lingering illness and untimely death would not
desert my consciousness. I determined to take up the study of medical
practice and surgery which I did."

Dr. Buckner graduated from the Indiana Electic Medical College in 1890.
His services were needed at Indianapolis so he practiced medicine in
that city for a year, then located at Evansville where he has enjoyed an
ever increasing popularity on account of his sympathetic attitude among
his people.

"When I came to Evansville," says Dr. Buckner, "there were seventy white
physicians practicing in the area, they are now among the departed.
Their task was streneous, roads were almost impossible to travel and
those brave men soon sacrificed their lives for the good of suffering
humanity." Dr. Buckner described several of the old doctors as "Striding
[TR: illegible handwritten word above 'striding'] a horse and setting
out through all kinds of weather."

Dr. Buckner