Raymond Phillip Miller (1936–2005)

Raymond Phillip Miller was a physician who served as the first African American appointed to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees. He also co-founded the Little Rock Internal Medicine Clinic, considered to be the first integrated medical practice in the state.

Raymond Miller was born in Cotton Plant (Woodruff County) on November 26, 1936, into the farming family of Marion Winfield Miller and Maudie Lee Miller. Miller was the eldest son of fourteen children. He attended Cotton Plant Vocational High School and graduated in 1955. Miller was active in various organizations in high school, including serving as president of the state chapter of New Farmers of America, an agricultural organization for Black youths, similar to the Future Farmers of America. During his high school years, Miller also excelled at baseball—so much so that he was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in 1955. Miller chose to attend college instead of pursuing a baseball career.

He entered Arkansas AM&N (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff), supported by a scholarship, with the intent to study agriculture. However, Miller decided on medicine as a career and switched his major to pre-medicine. The switch caused him to lose his scholarship, but he took a job in the college cafeteria to pay his tuition. Dr. Frank Bryant, the sports manager at Arkansas AM&N, befriended Miller and encouraged him to go to medical school. Miller graduated from Arkansas AM&N in 1959, with a degree in biology. Later that fall, he entered the University of Arkansas School of Medicine—now the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS)—in Little Rock (Pulaski County).

Racism was still prevalent in the medical school, despite the fact that it had been more than a decade since the school admitted its first Black student, Edith Irby, in 1948. During Miller’s admission interview, the white interviewer turned his back to Miller. Miller found acceptance from his fellow students, however. Hoyte Pyle, whom Miller met during an anatomy class in his first year of medical school, became a lifelong friend and business partner. Also during this time, Miller met Dr. Joseph H. Bates, who became his mentor.

Miller married Clarice Jean Pettigrew, a public school teacher and fellow graduate of Arkansas AM&N, on June 26, 1960. The couple had two children.

After Miller’s graduation from medical school in 1963, he completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine’s University Hospital in Little Rock. The Vietnam War was ongoing, and the draft was pulling young men from their educations and careers. Physicians were not excluded, but many did receive deferments for two years while they finished their specialty training. In 1968, after he completed his pulmonary training, Miller was inducted into the U.S. Army. He was sent to Walter Reed Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, where he worked in the Pulmonary Disease Service Unit.

While Miller was working at Walter Reed, his friend Pyle was in nearby Quantico, Virginia. Pyle invited the Millers to dinner at his Virginia home. During this dinner, Pyle asked Miller if he would be interested in opening a private practice together. Miller was skeptical at first, but he eventually agreed. They then asked Robert B. Moore and Jack Waggoner to join them in the endeavor. In October 1970, the four physicians opened the Little Rock Internal Medicine Clinic, the first integrated medical practice in Arkansas.

The clinic established a policy that was different than other medical practices at the time: white or Black patients were seen by any one of the four physicians, regardless of race. At this time, it was typical for Black patients to be seen by white doctors, but it was extremely rare for a Black physician to administer to white patients, especially white females. In the few instances at the clinic in which white patients wanted to be seen by white doctors Pyle, Moore, or Waggoner instead of Miller, patients were reminded of the policy and told that they could either be seen by the doctor available or go to another clinic. There was little opposition to the policy in the general public or in the local medical community.

In 1970, Miller was appointed to the board of the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Previously, Miller had served on the board of the McRae Sanatorium, which was the only facility to house Black Arkansans with tuberculosis. In 1972, Governor Dale Bumpers appointed Miller to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, the first Black member of the board. Miller served on the board for ten years, including one term as chairman in 1981–1982. During his tenure on the board, Miller worked closely with Coach Frank Broyles to recruit Black athletes to play for the University of Arkansas athletic teams.

Miller retired in 1997, and he died on August 23, 2005, from cancer. He is buried in the Arkansas State Veterans Cemetery in North Little Rock (Pulaski County).

For additional information:
“Breaking Barriers: Racial Integration in Medicine by the Little Rock Internal Medicine Clinic Panel Discussion.” Society for the History of Medicine and Health Professions, Little Rock, December 6, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFgIpyPROv4 (accessed July 25, 2025).

“First Black Member of UA Board of Trustees Named.” Northwest Arkansas Times, March 17, 1972, p. 2.

Hill, Jack W. “High Profile: Raymond Phillip Miller.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 13, 1997, pp. 1D, 13D.

Woodworth, Hillary. “Raymond Phillip Miller Sr: He, 3 Others Opened Integrated LR Clinic.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, August 25, 2005, p. 6B.

Timothy G. Nutt
Historical Research Center
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences