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Levi Watkins Jr. (June 13, 1944 – April 11, 2015) was an African American heart surgeon and civil rights activist. On February 4, 1980, he and Vivien Thomas were the first to successfully implant an automatic defibrillator in a human patient at Johns Hopkins University. This took place only a mere seven months after Watkins completed his surgical education at Johns Hopkins. Today, millions of patients everywhere use this device, which detects irregular heart beats and corrects them.

Early life and education
Watkins was born in Parsons, Kansas to Levi Watkins, Sr. (1911–1994) and Lillian Varnado (1917–2013). He grew up with four siblings: two brothers, James Watkins and Donald V. Watkins Sr., and two sisters, Doristine L. Minott and Annie Marie Garraway. The family moved to Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as the sixth president of Alabama State College from 1962 to 1983 and his mother worked as a high school teacher. As a child, Watkins was baptized by Reverend Ralph Abernathy in Birmingham, Alabama. Reverend Abernathy served as a leader in civil rights and worked diligently with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Watkins was the valedictorian of his class at Alabama State Laboratory High School.

He was motivated to seek a career in the medical field by a Biology professor at Tennessee State University. Watkins graduated from Tennessee State University with a degree in Biology and applied to the University of Alabama School of Medicine, but was rejected. Instead, he attended the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, and became the first African American to obtain a medical degree from that institution. He learned of his acceptance through a newspaper article about him in Nashville. By the time he graduated in 1970, Watkins was still the only black student at the school. He was a member of Alpha Omega Alpha, Alpha Phi Alpha, Alpha Kappa Mu, and Beta Kappa Chi.

Medical career
Watkins began his medical residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1971. There, he became chief resident of cardiac surgery, acting as the first African American chief resident at the university. He left in 1973 for Harvard University where he researched the use of angiotensin blockers in cases of congestive heart failure until 1975. Watkins returned to Johns Hopkins two years later, and joined the admissions department in 1979. In 1980, he began his work on the defibrillator, which he improved upon during his time at Johns Hopkins. Watkins also used this time to enhance techniques for open heart surgery, many of which are still used today. He was named a professor of cardiac surgery in 1991, and concurrently held the post of Associate Dean of the School of Medicine until his retirement in 2013.

In 1993, his father, Levi Watkins Sr., had a stroke and required vascular surgery. His siblings requested that Watkins perform the surgery, as they knew he was an exceptional cardiac surgeon. He prayed before the surgery, which resulted in success.

Civil Rights Activism
As a young boy, Watkins and his family met Martin Luther King's family through their church. Watkins was 8 years old when he met Dr. King, who served as the family's pastor. From that point on, he became invested in the civil rights movement, and spent the rest of his life fighting for other fellow African Americans and other minorities who were struggling in their advance in the medical field. In 1955, when Watkins was only 11 years old, he took part in the Montgomery bus boycott that took place after the bus incident with Rosa Parks. He also worked closely with Dr. King, serving as a volunteer driver for the civil rights leader. Later in his life, he was selected to serve on the admissions board at John's Hopkins University where he spent his last years making the school more fair to all ethnicities, especially minorities. He improved conditions at the school so much that between the years of 1978 and 1983, the school's population of African American students expanded by 5.

Watkins acted as an adviser to several important African American figures, such as Dr. James E. K. Hildreth and Dr. Selwyn M. Vickers. Dr. James E. K. Hildreth was the dean of the College of Biological Sciences at UC Davis and is also an immunologist who spent much of his career helping with AIDS research. Dr. Selwyn M. Vickers acted as the first African American dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Birmingham.

Death and Legacy
Watkins died in Baltimore on April 11, 2015, at the age of 70, due to a heart attack and subsequent stroke. Vanderbilt University established the Levi Watkins Jr., M.D. Chair in his honor on April 30. He had inaugurated a lecture series also named after him in 2002. A plaque with his picture and description of his life is installed at The Marble Fountain in Patterson Park, in Baltimore.