Isaac H. Snowden was one of three African-American students admitted to Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School

Harvard Medical School is the graduate medical school of Harvard University. It is located in the Longwood Medical Area of the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts....

 in 1850, along with Martin Delany

Martin Delany

Martin Robinson Delany was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. He became the first African-American field officer in the United...

 and Daniel Laing, Jr.

Daniel Laing, Jr.

Daniel Laing, Jr. was one of the first African American physicians in the United States.Laing was born a free black in Boston. He tried to make a living as an independent printer before deciding to emigrate to Liberia...

  Snowden and Laing were sponsored by the American Colonizing Society in doing so and had previously been connected with the Young Men's Literary Society in Boston.

After being at Harvard for a time white students protested the admission of black students, and Snowden and the two other black students were removed from the school. Snowden then studied with a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital is a teaching hospital and biomedical research facility in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts...

 and unsuccessfully tried to re-enter Harvard in 1853.

Sources

• Menand, Louis
  Louis Menand
  Louis Menand is an American writer and academic, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Metaphysical Club , an intellectual and cultural history of late 19th and early 20th century America....
  
  . The Metaphysical Club. p. 7-9.
• A Study of Black Intellectual and Literary Societies in Antebellum Boston