Philip A. White

Philip Augustus White (1823–1891) was an American pharmacist, aristocrat, advocate, and school board administrator. He was the first to graduate from the College of Pharmacy of the City of New York in 1844 amid widespread racial barriers to professional education, the Secretary for the New York Society for the Promotion of Education Among Colored Children and the first African American member of the Brooklyn Board of Education.

Life and career White was born in Hoboken, New Jersey in 1823. He was one of six children. His mother, Elizabeth, was born in Jamaica and was of mixed white and black heritage. His father, Thomas, was a white Englishman. White was considered to be black according to the 'one drop rule' and identified as such.

White attended the Laurens Street School (or Colored School No. 2), after which he apprenticed in James McCune Smith's Greenwich Village pharmacy.