DARREN SHOMARI
HARPER, MD
Dr. Harper is a Physician who has dedicated his career to the health and well-being of his community for over 30 years. He was raised in Brooklyn, New York and received his undergraduate degree in Biology from Brown University in Providence, RI in 1982. He received his Medical Doctorate from SUNY Health Sciences Center at Syracuse in 1988. He completed his medical internship at Columbia University at Harlem Hospital in NYC and went on to complete his residency training in Family Medicine at SUNY Brooklyn/Kings County Hospital (Chief Resident) in 1992.
During his undergraduate education he had a special interest in African American Studies and as part of his medical training had educated himself on African American Health Disparities.
Dr. Harper has since held several leadership positions during his career. He served as the Associate Chairperson of the Department of Family Medicine at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center in New York. He was the President of the Brooklyn Branch of the National Medical Association and served as a Delegate to the NMA.
In 2005, he relocated to Atlanta and joined Morehouse School of Medicine in the capacity of Medical Director of the Department Family Medicine, Community Liaison. He served as Assistant Professor of Family Medicine for 6 years. Dr. Harper presently serves as a Coordinator of the Health Ministry and Young Men's Rights of Passage program at First African Church and continues to engage in community health education around the Coronavirus pandemic and other community health issues.
Dr. Harper or Shomari, as he is known, has always been involved in African Centered organizations and endeavors concurrently with his professional pursuits. In college, he joined the Organization of United African People, and the All African Peoples Revolutionary Party. During the 80's he studied at Hunter College under the tutelage of Baba John Henrik Clarke on African and African American History. He and his young family regularly attended the teachings of Dr. Ben-Jochannan, Dr. Leonard Jeffries, and others in the Free Your African Mind Series held in Harlem, NY. Along with his wife Janice (Taheera) he traveled to South Africa twice taking his young son, the second time. He is ideologically dedicated to Pan Africanism and is currently a member of the First African Church pastored by the Reverend Dr. Mark Ogunwale Lomax who preaches Africentric Liberation Theology, the Friends of the Congo of Atlanta organization and the Pan African Federalist Movement, African Union - Region 6 USA (now inactive) as well as the National Reparations Institute. He also maintains a special interest in Environmental Health and carries on the legacy of Environmental Justice advocacy that he and his wife, now an ancestor, had cultivated together.
