Charles Burleigh Purvis very successful at Howard, and was credited with keeping the medical department running during the financial panic of 1873. He attended President Garfield after he was shot by an assassin on July 2, 1881. This made him the first black physician to attend to a sitting president. Later in 1881 he was appointed by President Chester Arthur to Surgeon-in-Charge at the Freedmen's hospital. Purvis was surgeon-in-charge at the Freedmen's Hospital from October 1, 1881, to 1894, and in that role was the first black person to head a hospital under civilian authority. In a letter from 1908, Purvis stated he
Charles J. Cooper commercial, and civil rights litigation. Cooper led the legal team for the defendant-intervenors in "Hollingsworth v. Perry," defending California Proposition 8 in 2008, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. He argued this case before the US Supreme Court. Charles has been retained by Attorney General, Jeff Sessions for counsel in response to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Charles J. Cooper Charles 'Chuck' J. Cooper (born 1955) is an appellate attorney and litigator in Washington, D.C., where he is a founding member and chairman of the law firm Cooper & Kirk, PLLC. He was named by