Today In Black History
Dr. Jocelyn Elders, 1st African-American U.S. Surgeon General
Issue #538 Today In Black History, Tuesday, March 20, 2024
Today’s Black History WOW!
Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the first person in the state of Arkansas to become board-certified in pediatric endocrinology, was the fifteenth Surgeon General of the United States, the first African American, and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public Health Service. Long an outspoken advocate of public health, Dr. Elders received constant criticism for her advocacy of women’s reproductive rights, sex education for adolescents, and the legalization of marijuana.
She was born to a poor farming family in 1933. After graduating from high school, she earned a scholarship to the all-Black liberal arts Philander Smith College in Little Rock. While she scrubbed floors to pay for her tuition, her brothers and sisters picked extra cotton and did chores for neighbors to earn her $3.43 bus fare. In college, she enjoyed biology and chemistry but thought that lab technician was likely her highest calling.
Her ambitions changed when she heard Edith Irby Jones, the first African American to attend the University of Arkansas Medical School, speak at a college sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, Inc. Elders—who had not even met a doctor until she was 16 years old—decided that becoming a physician was possible, and she wanted to be like Jones. Elders later became a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
Over the next twenty years, Elders combined her clinical practice with research in pediatric endocrinology, publishing well over a hundred papers, most dealing with problems of growth and juvenile diabetes. This work led her to the study of sexual behavior and her advocacy on behalf of adolescents. She saw that young women with diabetes face health risks if they become pregnant too young—including spontaneous abortion and possible congenital abnormalities in the infant. She helped her patients to control their fertility and advised them on the safest time to start a family.
Dr. Elders has received a National Institutes of Health career development award and has also served as an assistant professor in pediatrics at the University of Arkansas Medical Center since 1967. She was promoted to associate professor in 1971 and professor in 1976. Her research interests focused on endocrinology, and she received board certification as a pediatric endocrinologist in 1978, becoming the first person in the state of Arkansas to do so.
Governor Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Joycelyn Elders head of the Arkansas Department of Health in 1987. As she campaigned for clinics and expanded sex education, she caused a storm of controversy among conservatives and some religious groups. Yet, largely because of her lobbying, in 1989 the Arkansas Legislature mandated a K-12 curriculum that included sex education, substance abuse prevention, and programs to promote self-esteem. From 1987 to 1992, she nearly doubled childhood immunizations, expanded the state's prenatal care program, and increased home-care options for the chronically or terminally ill.
In 1993, Dr. Elders was appointed as the Surgeon General of the United States by President Bill Clinton, making her the first African American and only the second woman to hold the position. During her tenure, Dr. Elders focused on a wide range of issues, including drug legalization, sex education, and preventing teen pregnancy. She was known for her outspoken and controversial views, often advocating for policies that were met with opposition.
Dr. Elders drew fire, as well as censure from the Clinton administration when she suggested that legalizing drugs might help reduce crime and that the idea should be studied.
In January 1994 in the context of abortion, Dr. Elders said, "We really need to get over this love affair with the fetus and start worrying about children."
Later that year, at a United Nations conference on AIDS, Dr. Elders stated that “…masturbation was something that is a part of human sexuality and it's a part of something that perhaps should be taught. But we've not even taught our children the very basics. And I feel that we have tried ignorance for a very long time and it's time we try education."
Because of that opinion and other controversial decisions, in December 1994, Dr. Elders was forced to resign by President Clinton.
Since leaving her post as Surgeon General, Dr. Elders has returned to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences as a professor of pediatrics and is currently professor emerita at UAMS.
She received a Candace Award from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women in 1991. She was inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa as an honoris causa initiate at SUNY Plattsburgh in 1996.
In 2015, Philander Smith College, Dr. Elders' alma mater, established the Dr. Joycelyn Elders School of Allied and Public Health.
Dr. Elders was inducted into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame in 2016.
Today In Black History
- In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe published her anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in Boston.
- In 1854, anti-slavery activists within the U.S. Whig Party, including future presidents Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, and Benjamin Harrison, left to form the new Republican Party in Ripon, Wisconsin.
- In 1950, Dr. Ralph Bunche became the first African American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator for the 1948 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
- In 1956, the African nation of Tunisia gained its independence from France.
- In 1965, civil and women’s rights activist Dr. Dorothy I. Height published her first column in the weekly African-American newspaper, the “New York Amsterdam News.”
- In 2016, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. President to visit Cuba since 1928.
- In 2023, UNICEF reported that a drought in Somalia may have killed 43,000 people in 2022, over 1/2 of them children.
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