A dentist opened the doors of Grady Memorial Hospital to everyone

Catch up quick: When it opened in June 1892, Grady was Atlanta's first publicly-funded hospital and sorely needed health care options for the city's indigent.

• The 100-bed facility became a training ground for young doctors and nurses entering the fast-evolving world of medicine (hello, hand-washing and adequate ventilation).

Yes, but: From its beginning, the hospital was segregated by race, and after a massive post-WWII expansion that created two separate Black and white wings, the medical complex earned the nickname "The Gradys."

Bell, one of Atlanta's first Black dentists and an activist with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, argued in 1961 that Black patients at Grady did not have access to psychiatric beds, were often sent to separate facilities, and received substandard care.

Zoom out: The following year, 1962, Bell and seven other Black medical professionals filed a federal lawsuit against the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority. The authority settled the case — ultimately ending segregation at Grady and hospitals across Georgia.

The big picture: Bell's integration effort "made Grady the hospital it should have always been" — a public medical facility that served all the public, Mike King, the author of "A Spirit of Charity: Restoring the Bond Between America and Its Public Hospitals," told Axios.

• The integration increased access for Black medical professionals as well, King said, which in turn paved the way for the creation of the Morehouse School of Medicine, where generations of Black students could train.

State of play: Grady and its clinics serve hundreds of thousands of people yearly, and the complex looming over the Downtown Connector operates metro Atlanta's only Level I Trauma Center.