Last week, Xernona Clayton had an impromptu encounter with a lasting piece of her trailblazing life’s legacy. After being accidentally dislodged from her seat by a fellow passenger aboard a flight back to Atlanta, the civil rights legend found herself on a gurney being wheeled into Grady Memorial Hospital downtown.

Looking around the Grady ER, she took note of the mix of Black, brown, and white medical personnel and patients swirling around her. Despite her injuries, a smile flickered across Clayton’s face.

In 1963, shortly after moving from Los Angeles to Atlanta to work for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, she befriended local Black doctors. When Clayton learned Black mothers-to-be could only give birth at Grady on Thur

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