She was busy with her own work as a teacher, preparing lessons and lectures and such, but still she caught bits and pieces of the conversations her then-husband was having in the living room of their small home on the Morehouse College campus. It was the 1970s, and Dr. Samuel W. Williams — a Morehouse professor of philosophy and religion, the pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta, and a civil rights leader — was talking with friends and colleagues about the need for a medical school in Atlanta that focused on training and graduating black doctors.

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You might think a scientist and an English horn-player would have little in common, what with one being more of a pragmatist and the other a creative musician. But when Dr. Zach W. Hall and Julie Ann Giacobassi first met, backstage after a San Francisco Symphony concert, they found they shared many similar interests — including a mission to help improve lives through education and equity.

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Patients put out their best hand towels when Dr. Earl S. Lipman was making a house call. He wore his finest suit and tie from Hickey-Freeman and carried a black leather doctor’s bag. His young son, John, was sometimes by his side.

John loved to watch his father work as a solo internist in Rochester, New York — the special care the doctor took to listen to and diagnose his patients, and the way the patients responded with appreciation and respect. John’s home brimmed with their baked goods during the holidays.

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