Dr. John H. Gladney (1922-2011) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. According to his biography, the seeds of his interest in medicine were planted in early childhood when at the age of five he witnessed the death of his mother in a segregated substandard section reserved for Blacks in the basement of a white hospital. His father, John Citizen Gladney, was left with three small children to raise and by all accounts was instrumental in instilling in each a love of education and history. The elder Gladney was a pillar of the community with a respectable position as a letter carrier. In keeping with his passion for learning, he was also a Bible scholar and influential in the A.M.E. church.

After completing elementary and high school in Little Rock, Gladney matriculated at the historically Black Talladega College in Talladega, Alabama in 1939. Following graduation, he enrolled in Meharry Medical School, and in 1946, like so many other Black medical school graduates, he made the trek to Homer G. Phillips hospital to intern. He was able to pay for his medical education through the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP) and was commissioned a first lieutenant after receiving his M.D. in 1947. He never served because he was informed that the army had no need for “colored doctors.” During the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the Air Force and served in French Morocco.

Upon his discharge he began practicing in Illinois. He returned to St. Louis in 1956 where he opened a private practice and became supervisor of the ear, nose, and throat service at Homer G. Phillips Hospital. Gladney went on to receive prominence in the field of otolaryngology. For his pioneering work in relating hearing loss to diabetes, he became the first and only Black Fellow inducted into the American Triological Society in 1962. Dr. Gladney joined the faculty of St. Louis University in 1957 as an assistant professor of medicine at St. Louis University and eventually became the head of his department. He retired from medicine in 1993 but continued his civic engagement working in a mentoring program for the St. Louis public schools and serving on boards, including the Missouri Historical Society Board of Trustees from 1993 to 1998.

To honor his decades of service and his contributions to the field of medicine, St. Louis University established the Gladney Diversity Awards in 1999 and the Gladney Scholar-in-Residence program in 2015.