Researching Hildrus Poindexter

Poindexter was the son of tenant farmers in rural Tennessee. His father had been enslaved. He attended Lincoln University, PA, graduating in 1924. A year later he attended Dartmouth Medical School and then went on to Harvard Medical School where earned his M.D. in 1929. He furthered his studies at Columbia University, where he received an A.M. in microbiology in 1930, and the Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology in 1932. He received an M.P.H. in public health and tropical medicine from Harvard in 1932. Dr. Poindexter became the head of the Medical College at Howard University in 1936.

He was a Prince Hall Mason and member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

He entered the United States Army in 1943 and had a very distinguished career as an expert on Malaria and other tropical diseases. He left the army as a lieutenant colonel having earned a bronze star for his work in reducing malaria infections among the troops. He continued his military service as a commissioned officer in the United States Public Health Service. In 1947, Senior Surgeon Poindexter was appointed posted to the Mission to Liberia as chief of laboratory and medical research in West Africa. The goal of the mission was to help the Liberian government in sanitation planning and the control of infectious diseases. He became director in 1948.

In 1953 Dr. Poindexter was transferred to Indochina. He went on to serve in various other countries including Vietnam, Surinam, Iraq, Libya, and Sierra Leone before returning to the faculty of Howard University. During his tenure at Howard, Pondexter mentored a number of notable younger scientists, such as Jane Hinton, the co-developer of the Mueller-Hinton agar, and Ruth Ella Moore.

In 1962, Poindexter became the first Black scientist to become board-certified in microbiology by the American Society for Microbiology, passing the American Board of Medical Microbiology certification as only the 141th person to do so.

Poindexter published his autobiography, My World Of Reality, in 1973 in which he candidly discusses his various life experiences including dealings with racial prejudice. One example is the offer of membership by the American Society of Parasitologists, withdrawn when the society learned that Poindexter was Black.