Dr. Clinton Warner

Dr. Clinton E. Warner, Jr. saw action on the front lines of two of the twentieth century's most transformative struggles. Born in Atlanta on July 11, 1924, Warner fought in World War II and became an active civil rights participant.

Warner's post-secondary education was interrupted by the onset of World War II. From 1942 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Army and participated in the D-Day invasion of France that turned the tide of the war in Europe. Warner then returned home to study at Morehouse College, where he received his M.A. in 1948. He earned his medical degree from Meharry Medical School in Nashville, graduating summa cum laude in 1951. Following an internship in Chicago and surgical training in St. Louis, Warner entered private practice in Atlanta as a surgeon specializing in breast diseases.

Warner also became heavily involved in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He purchased his first home on Fielding Lane in Southwest Atlanta, defying the Berlin Wall-like Peyton Road Barricades erected in 1962 by Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr. to segregate the community. Warner's act of resistance initiated a campaign for fair housing that opened housing in Southwest Atlanta to African Americans. Warner was also a plaintiff in a 1963 lawsuit that desegregated Emory University and the Fulton County Medical and Dental Society. As the civil rights movement gained momentum, Warner contributed medical and financial services to student activists and was jailed twice in hotel protests in Atlanta. In 1967, he founded the first minority medical surgical group, the Atlanta Surgical Professional Association.

An active member of several medical and civic organizations, Warner has been recognized several times for his contributions to medicine and the community. He served as honorary co-chairman of the Medical Support Group for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and serves on the board of trustees of Morehouse College. Warner retired from medicine in 1996. He and his wife, Sally Johnson, have one son, Clinton E. Warner, III, and live in Atlanta.

Dr. Clinton Warner passed away on June 30, 2012.