William C. Cooper, School of Pharmacy Class of 1957

This piece is part of the larger story "125 Years of Pharmacy", originally published in the Spring 2023 issue of Chronicle of Giving.

WILLIAM S. COOPER, 1928–2009, CLASS OF 1957 

FIRST BLACK GRADUATE 

William S. “Bill” Cooper dreamed of being a country doctor, but attending medical school meant relocating his growing family to Washington, D.C., or Nashville, Tennessee, where the closest Black medical schools were located.

His late wife, LaVerne, remembers asking whether Bill should consider pharmacy school in their adoptive hometown, and he agreed to apply for studies at the MCV School of Pharmacy. He had earned a degree in chemistry from Virginia Union University in 1949 before joining the U.S. Army in 1950. After serving two years at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, preparing troops for the Korean War, he decided to enter pharmacy school and found that his chemistry studies gave him an edge over some of his classmates.

Bill was also grateful to be entering a profession that desperately needed pharmacists to serve Black communities in the segregated South. From his earliest days as a student, he was breaking barriers and faced a number of challenges. LaVerne recalled an incident when Bill and his classmates had stopped for ice cream while on a field trip. The store refused to serve Cooper, so the group decided to leave and go somewhere else that would serve him.

“He was very attached to them,” she told the MCV Foundation in 2023.

Following his graduation, he enjoyed a 38-year career that led him to serve communities in Hampton, Petersburg and Richmond, where he and two business partners purchased Maymont Pharmacy in 1968. The drugstore was a beloved part of the neighborhood until the construction of the RMA Expressway forced its sale and demolition.

“He really was the People’s Pharmacist,” said his son Bill Jr., who worked in the Maymont Pharmacy as a soda jerk. “Many nights he came home later than expected from his shifts because he would be delivering prescriptions to the elderly or shut-ins.”

Cooper left many legacies, not the least of which is a School of Pharmacy scholarship created in his name in 1987 by former fellow students to honor their 30th reunion. Because he was the first Black student to graduate from the school — and because of his commitment to breaking barriers — Cooper’s classmates designated the scholarship to support students from underrepresented backgrounds.

“We were very surprised when we first learned about the scholarship to honor Bill,” said LaVerne. “He touched so many lives, and we will be forever grateful to the MCV School of Pharmacy Class of 1957 for helping make sure his story is remembered and told to future generations.”

To support the scholarship in his leave and go somewhere else that   name, additional gifts can be made to would serve him the William S. Cooper Scholarship Fund, c/o VCU School of Pharmacy, Box 980581, Richmond, VA 23298.