Hidden Figures: Dr. Edith Irby Jones #BlackHERstoryMonth 5/29 (Patreon)

Hidden Figures: Dr. Edith Irby Jones #BlackHERstoryMonth 5/29

Dr. Edith Irby Jones was born Edith Irby on December 23, 1927 in Mayflower, Arkansas, and grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Her father was a sharecropper who died in an accident when Irby was seven, and soon after her family was beset with a series of illnesses: her mother, a domestic worker, suffered from chronic poor health which eventually left her unable to work; her brother nearly died from typhoid fever, Irby herself came down with rheumatic fever that left her unable to walk for attend school for a year, and her sister died from typhoid fever. Her poverty stricken family was unable to afford medical care, especially since hospitals were segregated, and the experience stuck with Irby for the rest of her life, inspiring her to become a doctor. After the deaths of her father and sister and the illness of her mother, in order to provide for the family Irby became a caretaker, caring for a doctors son for $2.50 a week. The family encouraged her dream to become a doctor, as did her teachers, and she obtained a scholarship to the historically Black Knoxville College in Tennessee, where she studied, biology, chemistry, and physics and graduated in 1948. She then applied and was accepted to the Arkansas Medical School, making her the first Black student to be offered a spot there. Black Americans in Little Rock and across Arkansas contributed to her medical school fund with dimes and quarters, and the black newspaper, the Arkansas State-Press, paid for her living expenses. When Irby enrolled in 1948, her 1948 admittance to the University of Arkansas’ segregated medical school made national news. She became active in the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement while in medical school, petitioning to desegregate the campus and attending rallies to desegregate all Arkansas public schools, and became friends with NAACP lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. During the 60s, Irby would go on to work with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the “Freedom Four,” a group of Black working professionals who traveled around the South encouraging people to join the Civil Rights Movement. She was the first Black American graduate from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and she was subsequently accepted to complete the first residency by a Black American at a hospital in Arkansas. Irby practiced medicine in Hot Springs before moving to Houston, Texas in 1959 as the first black woman resident at Baylor College of Medicine. She would spend the majority of her career in Houston, teaching at the University of Texas Medical School, running an internal medicine practice in the Third Ward along with working at Riverside General Hospital. As the 3rd Ward was predominantly Black American and impoverished, Irby Jones drove a van to pick up and treat her patients, and often accepted produce such as eggs and vegetables as payment at her private practice. Jones worked in Houston for more than 50 years, establishing several public medical clinics and becoming known as an advocate for medical care for the poor. Irby Jones continued practicing until 2014, and died in December 2019. ****************** Merchandise! MAKE SURE U GETTA SHIRT!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/sssseren Follow me on social media! Instagram: @sensei_aishitemasu Personal Tumblr: http://sensei-aishitemasu.tumblr.com Tumblr for my work: https://sssseren.tumblr.com Snapchat: sssseren GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/tc5wh7q Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/seren_sensei ****************** Did you know I wrote a book? ☺️ 'So, About That... A Year of Contemporary Essays on Race and Pop Culture' Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/About-That-Contemporary-Essays-Culture-ebook/dp/B013V0CHK6 Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B013V0CHK6 Digital download (e-book): https://gumroad.com/l/IkUa ****************** Links: The Quiet Pioneer: https://medicine.uams.edu/about-the-college/features/edith-irby-jones-quiet-pioneer/ 'Dr. Edith Irby Jones, pioneering black doctor, dead at 91:' https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/health/article/Dr-Edith-Irby-Jones-pioneering-black-doctor-14100960.php Edith Irby Jones, trailblazer for African American doctors, dies at 91:' https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/edith-irby-jones-trailblazer-for-african-american-doctors-dies-at-91/2019/07/18/b4ea495e-a96a-11e9-86dd-d7f0e60391e9_story.html In Memoriam | Edith Irby Jones, MD: https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2019/08/18/24/42/in-memoriam-edith-irby-jones-md Edith Irby Jones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Irby_Jones