KNOTT, Albert Paul

Dr. A. Paul Knott, 91, who served Pittsburgh's black community for five
decades, died Sunday of a stroke in his home in Chevy Chase, MD.  During his
career, he was a specialist in tuberculosis and allergies, and he was a
successful real estate developer.  His colleague, Dr. Charles Greenlee, who
has a practice in East Liberty, said Pittsburgh had had black physicians for
100 years, but getting to be one wasn't easy.  Greenlee, who is 80, said
many medical schools did not accept black students.  So Dr. Knott, who was
born Albert Paul Knott in 1902 and graduated from Schenley High School,
headed to Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn.  The college was
founded by five white brothers after one had been socially ostracized for
teaching medicine to a black man, Greenlee said.  Dr. Knott received his
degree in 1926 and four years later married Fannie Meredith Scott of
Chattanooga, Tenn.  They settled in Pittsburgh and had four children, one of
whom died in childhood.  His wife has also died.  Dr. Knott became a
specialist in tuberculosis, Greenlee said.  He was active in the Pittsburgh
Tuberculosis Association, now part of the American Lung Association.  In the
1950's, when he needed more office space, he built Knotts Manor, an
apartment and office building on Centre Avenue in the Hill district.  "He
faced the whole segregation thing and he beat it.  He beat it by the rich
flea process.  That's where the flea got tired of being scratched off the
dog so he bought him a dog.  That was the way Paul attacked the civil rights
thing.  He just bought it," Greenlee said.  "He didn't march with the rest
of us singing 'We Shall Overcome,' he just got the money and bought what he
wanted.  When he needed an office, he built the best office of any black
doctor in town.  Paul Knott influenced me that way  - to keep your mouth
closed and see what you can work by doing it the way everybody else does
it.  He was good at it.."  Dr. Knott was on the staff of St. Francis Medical
Center.  In the 1960's, he was one of the first staff physicians of the
Homewood-Brushton Health Center, which Greenlee headed and which is now the
Alma Illery Medical Center.  About the same time, when he was in his 60's,
Knott returned to school and became board certified as an allergist,
Greenlee recalled.  "That was the kind of guy that he was.  He would just do
it."  Dr. Knott retired after 52 years of practice and moved to Maryland,
where one of his daughters lives.  Dr. Knott is survived by his son, Dr. A.
Paul Knott, Jr., of Chicago; two daughters, Patricia R. Knott of New York
City and Sylvia Simmons of Chevy Chase; six grandchildren and one
great-grandson.  Friends will be received at the Gaines Funeral Home, 220
Auburn St., East Liberty, from 7 to 9 p.m. today.  The Pittsburgh chapter of
the Sigma Pi Phi fraternity will hold a fraternal service at 12:30 p.m.
Saturday, immediately before the 1 p.m. funeral at the Warren United
Methodist Church in the Hill District.  Internment will be at Allegheny
Cemetery.  The family suggests donations to Meharry Medical College.
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Source:  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Friday, October 15, 1993.
Contributor: [email protected] / remove "-nospam-" to send.
Researching GADSON, KNOTT, COX, CROSS from TN, PA, MI, NY and elsewhere.
GORDON, BROWN, BRYANT, STRONG, HOLLIDAY, HUFFSTICKLER from (SC, IA, and MS)

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