In honor of #WomensHistoryMonth and the fact that #BlackHistoryMonth should be all year long, here is another women’s health pioneer.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler challenged the prejudice that prevented African Americans from pursuing careers in medicine. When she graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864, she became the first Black female physician in the United States. She was also the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which closed in 1873. After graduating, she opened a medical practice in Boston.
She wrote in her Book of Medical Discourses, published in 1883, that she “sought every opportunity to relieve the suffering of others.” The book was one of the first publications about medicine written by an African American.
Dr. Crumpler practiced in Boston for a short while before moving to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War ended in 1865. Richmond, she felt, would be a “proper field for real missionary work,” and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. She joined other black physicians caring for freed slaves who would otherwise have had no access to medical care, working with the Freedmen’s Bureau, and missionary and community groups, even though black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South. After working in Richmond, in her book she mentions returning to Boston and caring for sick children regardless of what they could pay.
No other images survive of Dr. Crumpler. The little we know about her comes from the introduction in her book, a remarkable testament of her achievements as a physician and medical writer in a time when very few African Americans were able to gain admittance to medical college, let alone publish. I salute her as a pioneer who also embodied the spirit of service that all health practitioners should have. She saw her work as a doctor as “missions” and sought to relieve the suffering of her people.
P.S. Tomorrow at 7:00pm EST I am going live on Instagram with a past client of mine to talk about her experience working with me and her health transformation journey! Be sure to tune in, sis! -XO