Background
Pierce was born on April 4, 1922 in Philadelphia to Mary Leora Bellinger Pierce and Harold Ernest Pierce, Senior His mother was a classical pianist who played for Marian Anderson.
Pierce was born on April 4, 1922 in Philadelphia to Mary Leora Bellinger Pierce and Harold Ernest Pierce, Senior His mother was a classical pianist who played for Marian Anderson.
After graduating from Bridgeton High School in New Jersey, Pierce attended Lincoln University in 1942 with a Bachelor of Surgery degree and pledged Alpha Phi Alpha. In 1946, he graduated from Howard University College of Medicine with an Doctor of Medicine degree.
He pioneered surgical techniques for the treatment of keloids, laminar dermal reticulotomy, hair transplants, cosmetic facial surgery, chemical facial peeling, and dermabrasion in people of color. He was called "The Father of Black Cosmetic Surgery." He is the oldest of two sons. While he was still young, Harold was estranged from his father, and as an adult, visited his Father in Harlem.
His Father had retired as a Laboratory Assistant from New York State Department of Mental Hygiene.
Pierce studied under the famed Charles Drew while at Howard University. Pierce completed an internship at Harlem Hospital in New York City, a residency in dermatology at the Philadelphia General Hospital and Fellowship in dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania"s Graduate School of Medicine.
Doctor In 1951, as the Korean War peaked, Pierce accepted an assignment as the Chief of Dermatology at the 1600 United States Air Force Hospital at Westover Air Force Base in Massachusetts. In 1954, he became a General Medical Officer with the 111th Fighter Bomber.
After many distinguished years, he resigned from the Air Force National Guard in 1976 and was promoted in 1987 on the Retired list to the rank of Brigadier General.
He is the second African American to be given this ranking. Pierce was active in the Civil Rights movement, and even active as a child in the 1930s through his dissemination of Black Newspapers pushing for an end to the terrorizing lynchings of African Americans and their supporters that plagued America throughout the first half of the 20th century. After the Daughters of the American Revolution barred Marian Anderson from singing at Constitution Hall, Doctor Pierce would later join the Sons of the American Revolution to protest the segregation, and remind the organization that he was living proof that African-Americans also served in the American Revolution.
Pierce died at the age of 84 in Philadelphia from complications from prostate cancer.
He worked daily as a doctor until the age of 83. Over five hundred people attended his funeral.