Though we have a lot to highlight when it comes to black healers, black healers who identify as women is a group of healers I feel needs a spotlight currently. It is with them that many have found health and equitable care. As I continue to reexamine our white culture, systems of racism and white supremacy as well as myself, my blind spots and my work as a healer, I am encouraged by the perseverance, focus and ability to overcome obstacles that many black women healers have faced throughout history.
With road blocks in and to education, the addition of gender bias, as well as bias within the western medical system itself, its a wonder how many healers made it. A few who stand out to me, and their discoveries are listed below….
Susie King Taylor began nursing both black and white soldiers at the age of thirteen when the Civil War began and cared for them throughout the war. Dr. Justina Laurena Ford, the first black female physician in the Rocky Mountains, treated patients of all races in their homes, and became fluent in eight languages. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was the first African-American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States in 1864. Halle Tanner Dillon was the first woman licensed as a physician in Alabama. In 1916 Ella P Stewart became the first black woman licensed as a pharmacist in the U.S. Inez Prosser became the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in psychology in 1933. Della Raney became the first African American nurse in the Army Nurse Corps in 1941. In 1978 Alyce Faye Wattleton became the first African American to serve as president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
What this highlights for me and for many is the time it took. It brings me overwhelming sadness and empathy for anyone who has had to overcome the feeling of being treated as less than. That other humans are better and therefore have opportunity. What a travesty this has been throughout history and even now.
Fast forward to current times and black women across America continue to lead change. One women featured in Elle magazine caught our attention. Adaku Utah founded the collective Harriet's Apothecary which is a Brooklyn-based haven for Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color, committed to forms of healing that counteract the impacts of oppression. Nadine Burke Harris became the first Surgeon General of the State of California in 2019. Roselyn Payne Epps became the first African American woman president of the American Medical Women’s Association in 2002. This only names a few.
Black men also made and continue to make a huge impact of the health and history of medicine in America in their own right. Dr. Charles Drew invented the blood bank and discovered new uses for plasma. Dr. Benjamin Carson blazed a trail in the amazing field of brain surgery. Dr. James Durham, the first African American doctor, saved the lives of more yellow fever victims than most doctors in colonial Philadelphia. Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, who founded Provident Hospital in Chicago, saved a patient's life by performing the first successful open-heart operation.
I can’t list enough healers to even begin to give credit but it is still worth noting that this recognition has been missing in our history classes and our consciousness. Its time to change that.