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History

In the Beginning: Launching a Movement

Community health centers have a rich history, particularly in Massachusetts where the first health center in the nation was launched in 1965. Following is a comprehensive history of community health centers up through the present.

History Beginning

Physician-activists H. Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson Jr. helped launch the American Community Health Center Movement fifty years ago with their founding of the first two community health centers in the nation: one in the Columbia Point neighborhood of Dorchester, and the other in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Despite five decades of political, social and economic challenges, community health centers have remained committed to their mission of providing accessible, affordable and high-quality health care for all, growing from a two-site demonstration project to what is now the largest unified primary care network in the United States.

H. Jack Geiger and Count D. Gibson, Jr.