Who He Was
Royce Osborn began his career in 1952 as a staff technologist at a U.S. Army hospital in Louisiana. By 1955, he was chief radiologic technologist at Flint-Goodridge Hospital in New Orleans, the city's only private, noncharitable hospital that allowed Black doctors to practice. When the segregated local society of technologists denied him membership, he joined the national society, now called the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT). He later stopped a proposal that would have required members to belong to a local chapter first, a rule that would have shut him and other Black technologists in the segregated South out of the national society. In 1969, he became the ASRT's first Black president.
Why He Matters
As president, Osborn moved to Illinois, near the society’s headquarters, and worked as chief X-ray technologist at Loyola University Medical Center. He supported higher standards for professional training, safety requirements, and licensing to raise technologists' standing. In the 1970s, he became one of the first radiologic technologists to become a radiology administrator. In 2001, the ASRT created a scholarship for minority students in his name, and today an ARRT endowment funds Royce Osborn scholarships for students in entry-level programs like radiography and MRI. His wife, Paula, once said, “He didn’t think about being the first African-American anything. He was just proud of his accomplishments.”
