This is just a short list of the countless contributions Black Americans have made to improve public health at home and abroad. May we celebrate their accomplishments and influences all year long!
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- W.E.B. Du Bois
- A famous historian, sociologist, and activist, W.E.B. Du Bois also made huge impacts on the field of public health! Through his ethnographic research featured in The Philadelphia Negro and The Souls of Black Folks, Du Bois and his work paved the way for highlighting the importance of the social and health consequences of racism and discrimination against Black Americans.
- Adah Belle Samuels Thoms
- Adah Belle Samuels Thoms was a devoted nurse who co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses and fought for equal employment opportunities for Black Americans in the American Red Cross and U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Thoms was also one of the first nurses to be inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame for her work with civil rights and Black feminist activism.
- Ionia Rollin Whipper
- As a physician and public health reformer, Ionia Rollin Whipper was one of the few African American obstetricians in Washington, D.C. in the early 1900s. After discovering some of the shockingly unsanitary conditions in which young, poor mothers were forced to live, Whipper traveled throughout the South during the WW1 to educate Black mothers and midwives about public health and hygiene. Whipper devoted most of her career to either teaching or founding organizations to improve the lives of low-income Black women in Washington.
- May Edward Chinn
- As a renowned medical researcher for cancer detection, May Edward Chinn developed a protocol for cancer probability predictions using family medical history. She was also the first African American woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, which is now the NYU School of Medicine, as well as the first American American woman to intern at Harlem Hospital and to be granted hospital privileges.
- Virginia Margaret Alexander
- Virginia Margaret Alexander was a physician and public health researcher who used her desire to elevate the African American community through improved health conditions to found the Aspiranto Health Home in 1931. The Aspiranto Health Home provided “socialized” health services to low-income African Americans in Philadelphia, often free of cost. Alexander dedicated her life to improving medical care for African American women, children, and families, many of whom otherwise would have been neglected.
- Roscoe Conkling Brown Sr.
- Roscoe Conkling Brown Sr. was a dentist and public health pioneer who served in various national organizations specializing in African American health. Brown also became a member of President Franklin Roosevelt’s informal “Black Cabinet” to represent the specific needs of African Americans during the New Deal.
- Dr. David Satcher
- As Surgeon General and Assistant Secretary for Health, Dr. Satcher led the department’s efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health, the initiative was incorporated as one of the two major goals of Healthy People 2010. In 2005, he was appointed to serve on the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health
- Nancy Boyd-Franklin
- Nancy Boyd-Franklin is a renowned psychologist and writer. Boyd-Franklin specializes in issues that affect Black families and communities, and she has been instrumental in creating new therapeutic approaches that address the mental health of Black Americans that also expand treatment options for this community. Her experience in the field led her to the conclusion that therapeutic treatment options for Black families needed to be socially, culturally, and economically sensitive.
- Mae Jemison
- Mae Jemison is an engineer and former NASA astronaut, as well as the first Black woman to travel to space. She is also a trained physician who has contributed greatly to global health and development! Jemison served in the Peace Corps as a medical officer in Sierra Leone and Liberia, and she founded The Jemison Group, Inc., which developed a telecommunications system to improve healthcare delivery in developing countries around the world.
- Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett
- Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett is a virology immunologist who led the team that developed the Moderna COVID- 19 Vaccine. She grew up in Hillsborough, North Carolina and attended the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for her undergraduate degree. In 2014, Dr. Corbett recieved her PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She couldn’t have ever imagined the global impact her work would have just six short years later.
