Tag Archives: M. Joycelyn Elders

Women’s History Month – Dr. Joycelyn Elders

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Being the second female and first African American female to serve as Surgeon General, was just another milestone in the career of Dr. Joycelyn Elders.

In 1960, she graduated from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Though not the first African American female to do so, she was very much in a minority for both her race and her gender.  In 1967, she would return to UAMS as a faculty member.

After two decades of service as a physician and educator, Governor Bill Clinton appointed her to lead the Arkansas Department of Health in 1987.  She was the first African American woman to lead that department.  She led that department until 1992.  At that point in time, President Bill Clinton tapped her to be Surgeon General.

Upon leaving the post of Surgeon General, she returned to UAMS as a professor. She is now a professor emeritus.  Dr. Elders is also in demand as a lecturer and panelist.

She has been inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame, and the Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail.

Black History Month Spotlight – Healthcare Pioneers

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UALR Trail HealthcareThe new Arkansas Civil Rights History Audio Tour was launched in November 2015. Produced by the City of Little Rock and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock allows the many places and stories of the City’s Civil Rights history to come to life an interactive tour.  This month, during Black History Month, the Culture Vulture looks at some of the stops on this tour which focus on African American history.

The Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail was launched in 2011 by the UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity.  Each year, a theme is chosen to honor a particular group of people who were active in Arkansas’s civil rights movement.  Year by year, the trail grows.  The plan is that over time the trail will stretch from the current starting point at the Old State House, down West Markham Street and President Clinton Avenue to the Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, and then back up the other side of the street to opposite the Old State House.

Healthcare

Healthcare has long been a civil rights issue. In the age of segregation, many blacks were denied healthcare by white physicians and hospitals under Jim Crow laws. African American physicians-such as Cleon A. Flowers, Sr., and John Marshall Robinson-played important roles in serving the black community. Nurse Lena Lowe Jordan founded the Lena Jordan Hospital in Little Rock in the 1930s. Edith Mae Irby desegregated the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock in 1948. Dr. Irby paved the way for other black students and professors at the school. Thomas A. Bruce promoted access to quality healthcare to the underserved. Henry W. Foster became dean of Meharry Medical College in Tennessee. Billy Ray Thomas and Phillip Leon Rayford worked to increase underrepresented groups in the medical profession. Samuel Lee Kountz pioneered organ transplants. Joycelyn Elders, a UAMS graduate and director of the Arkansas Department of Health, served as the surgeon general of the United States during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

The app, funded by a generous grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council, was a collaboration among UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the City of Little Rock, the Mayor’s Tourism Commission, and KUAR, UALR’s public radio station, with assistance from the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Black History Month Spotlight – Philander Smith College

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reynoldslibraryphilandersmithThe new Arkansas Civil Rights History Audio Tour was launched in November 2015. Produced by the City of Little Rock and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock allows the many places and stories of the City’s Civil Rights history to come to life an interactive tour.  This month, during Black History Month, the Culture Vulture looks at some of the stops on this tour which focus on African American history.

Philander Smith College is Little Rock’s oldest historically black educational institution. It was established in 1877 as Walden Seminary, by the African Methodist Episcopal Church to educate ministers. Its name changed after an endowment in 1882 by the widow of Illinois philanthropist Philander Smith. Wesley Chapel has always been associated with the college’s activities. The enslaved William Wallace Andrews founded Wesley in 1854 on land donated by his owner, U.S. Senator Chester Ashley. In 1864, parishioners celebrated their freedom with a “Parade of Emancipation.”

Pastors at Wesley included Rev. J. C. Crenchaw, president of the Little Rock NAACP, and Rev. Negail Riley, leader of the Black United Fund. In the 1960’s, Philander Smith students participated in “sit-ins” at downtown lunch counters.

Noted alumni include Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former U.S. surgeon general; professional athletes Elijah Pitts of the Green Bay Packers; Hubert “Geese” Ausbie of the Harlem Globetrotters; and Milton Pitts Crenchaw, a Tuskeegee Airman; James Hal Cone, a pioneer of black liberation theology; Lottie Shackelford, former Mayor of Little Rock; Al Bell, founder of Stax Records and former president of Motown Records; and Stephanie Flowers, Arkansas State Senator.

The app, funded by a generous grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council, was a collaboration among UALR’s Institute on Race and Ethnicity, the City of Little Rock, the Mayor’s Tourism Commission, and KUAR, UALR’s public radio station, with assistance from the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau

Healthcare Pioneers focus of this year’s Civil Rights Heritage Trail

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crht-banner-2014-thru-banner32Drs. Thomas A. Bruce, M. Joycelyn Elders, Henry Foster Jr., Edith Irby Jones, and Billy Ray Thomas, and five posthumous honorees will be recognized for their efforts to provide quality healthcare to all citizens at 2 p.m. Friday, Oct. 24, in the Little Rock River Market District at the entrance of the St. Vincent Medical Mile.

Posthumous honors will be bestowed upon Drs. Cleon A. Flowers Sr., Samuel Lee Kountz, and John Marshall Robinson; registered nurse Lena Lowe Jordan; and scientist and educator Phillip Leon Rayford, Ph.D., during the fourth annual Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail Commemoration.

Commemorative markers will be added to the Heritage Trail in honor of pioneers in health care, individuals who were either first of their race to graduate from medical school, or who have shared their professional talents generously in ways that have championed racial equity in Arkansas.

“This year, the Institute turned to healthcare because even though it is a profession by which African Americans in particular have been grossly underrepresented and underserved, Arkansas has a rich tradition of producing some of the nation’s best and brightest medical professionals,” said Dr. Michael R. Twyman, director of the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity.

The Institute is partnering with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Center for Diversity Affairs to honor these healthcare professionals. The center specializes in encouraging young persons of color to seek careers in health and STEM professions.

“I am honored to be recognized with such accomplished people,” said Thomas, vice chancellor for diversity affairs at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. “It is also a very humbling experience because many of the other honorees are also my mentors.”

Like Thomas, the other nine honorees have made significant contributions toward social and racial equity in Arkansas – most of whom received their professional education and training during the the Civil Rights Movement era, during a time of deep civil unrest in the country and state.

“It is not lost on us that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education court decision that prohibited public institutions from discriminating on the basis of race,” said Twyman.

“Access to quality education and healthcare have become the predominant civil rights issues of our time,” he added.

Learn more about each honoree at  arkansascivilrightsheritage.org supported in part by a grant from the Arkansas Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

In addition to the Center for Diversity Affairs at UAMS, the Central Arkansas Planning and Development District; East Harding Inc.; Arkansas Medical, Dental, and Pharmaceutical Association; Just Communities of Arkansas; the Little Rock Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.; and the Little Rock Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. are sponsors for the event.

 

About the Civil Rights Heritage Trail

The Arkansas Civil Rights Heritage Trail was created in 2011 to acknowledge the sacrifices and achievements made by those who have fought for racial justice in the state. The Heritage Trail begins at the Old State House and currently stretches to the front of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce. As commemorative bronze markers are added each year, it will continue toward the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and beyond.     

 

About the UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity

The UALR Institute on Race and Ethnicity was founded in July 2011. With a vision to make Arkansas the best state in the country for promoting and celebrating racial and ethnic diversity, the Institute conducts research, promotes scholarship and provides programs that address racial inequities. It does so by facilitating open and honest dialogue aimed at empowering communities and informing public policy to achieve more equitable outcomes.