The home-hospital was developed to provide care for African-American veterans of World War I, who complained about difficulties in getting served in other facilities, particularly in the segregated South.

Civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People lobbied the federal government on its responsibilities to care for such veterans in providing health as well as employment and retraining services.

[5] The hospital's early emphasis was to be on treating tuberculosis, and mental illness related to combat and shell shock, the two diseases most often diagnosed in veterans after the war.

Dr. Robert Russa Moton, president of Tuskegee Institute, had to maneuver carefully to maintain local relations in the city, where whites were pushing to control jobs at the hospital.

Colonel Robert H. Stanley, a white man, was made superintendent of the hospital and arrived at Tuskegee two days before Dr. Moton was notified.

[5] Members of a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan marched on the hospital, but their action resulted in a broader campaign by the NAACP and NMA, attracting national attention.

Gen. Frank T. Hines, the director of the Veterans Bureau, appointed Dr. Joseph H. Ward, an African American, to head the hospital complex.

"[4] While arguments continued over segregated federal facilities (the NAACP refused to support proposals for an exclusive African-American VA hospital in the North), the civil rights movement of this period helped ensure that black veterans gained access to top care and services, and that African Americans gained access to professional jobs in the health system.