George H. Moreland

August 7, 1925 - March 24, 2023 Dr. George H. Moreland, one of the first African American physicians to open a San Fernando Valley private medical practice, passed away on Friday, March 24 from renal failure. He was 97 years old.

In 1958, after receiving his medical degree from the California College of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons, which in 1962 affiliated with the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, Dr. Moreland opened a medical office on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima with another physician and a dentist. He later moved his Family Practice offices to Sylmar.

During his years in Family Practice, Dr. Moreland was affiliated with San Fernando Hospital, Pacoima Lutheran Hospital, Serra Memorial Hospital and Providence Holy Cross Hospital. At Holy Cross, Dr. Moreland held several leadership positions including chair of the hospital's Department of Family Practice and as a trustee of hospital.

George Henry Moreland, Jr. was born in Pawnee, Oklahoma on Aug. 7, 1925. He was from a family of well-known African American educators. His father George Henry Moreland, Sr., a graduate of the Tuskegee Institute, was principal of the segregated 1-8th grade Pawnee school for 18 years and principal of another segregated school, Booker T. Washington High School in Davis, Oklahoma for 12 years. His mother, Lenora Estelle (Tuggle) Moreland was a graduate of Langston University, a public-land grant HBCU in Oklahoma. She taught home economics in segregated Pawnee schools. Her father, G.M. Tuggle, of Wellston, Oklahoma, was the long-time principal of Dunbar School, which opened as an all-black school in 1917.

In 1943, Dr. Moreland had just completed his second year at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas when he was drafted into the U.S. Navy. When he was discharged from the Navy in 1946, he held the rank of Pharmacist Mate.

Dr. Moreland returned to Southwestern and graduated with a BA. After arriving in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, he worked at UCLA Harbor General Hospital as a dental technician. Mutual friends introduced him to Claudia Bishop, a lab technician at the hospital. For their first date, they went to a Pacific Coast League baseball game at Wrigley Field in South Los Angeles. They were married on Aug. 24, 1952.

Dr. Moreland was always active in the community. He was one of the founders of the Pacoima First United Methodist Church. He was president of the Los Angeles Chapter of Sigma Pi Phi, fraternity. He was a member of the Centinela Advisory Board Advisory Board of the California Community Foundation. He was a Lifetime member of the NAACP.

Dr. Moreland was preceded in death by his wife of 61 years. He is survived by daughter Pamela, a journalist and former Los Angeles Times staff writer and daughter, actor/director Judith, who teaches at UCLA, and many loving nieces and nephews in California, Texas, and Oklahoma.

A celebration of life will be held later this year. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Los Angeles-Watts/Willowbrook Clubhouse. Please dedicate this gift in memory of Dr. George Moreland.