Edith Irby Jones was a pioneering American physician and a trailblazer in both medicine and civil rights. She achieved numerous historic firsts throughout her life: she was the first woman to serve as president of the National Medical Association (NMA) and a founding member of the Association of Black Cardiologists. Among her many accolades, Dr. Jones was inducted into the University of Arkansas College of Medicine Hall of Fame and the inaugural class of the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.

Jones broke barriers in medical education, becoming the first African American admitted as a non-segregated student to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1948. She was also the first African American to graduate from a Southern medical school, the first Black intern in the state of Arkansas, and later, the first Black intern at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.

Born on December 23, 1927, near Conway in Faulkner County, Arkansas, Jones was the daughter of Mattie and Robert Irby Jones. Her father died when she was eight, and she lost a sister to typhoid fever when she was twelve. She herself suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. These traumatic experiences inspired her to pursue a career in medicine.

Jones’ family later relocated to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where she attended Langston Secondary School, graduating in 1944. She then attended Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee, on a scholarship. There, she joined the Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society and was initiated into Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry and minors in biology and physics in 1948.

Later in 1948, Jones was admitted to the University of Arkansas Medical School in Little Rock, becoming the first African American accepted to any medical school in the Southern United States, just seven months after Silas Herbert Hunt integrated the University of Arkansas School of Law. Her admission made national headlines, appearing in The Crisis, Life, Ebony, and Time magazines.

Despite her groundbreaking admission, she faced significant racial discrimination, including being forced to use segregated facilities for dining and housing. Nevertheless, in 1952, she earned her Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree and began an internship at University Hospital in Little Rock, becoming the first African American to complete a residency in an Arkansas hospital.

Jones briefly practiced medicine in Hot Springs, Arkansas before relocating with her family to Houston, Texas. In 1959, she became the first Black woman intern at a Baylor College of Medicine-affiliated hospital. She completed the final months of her residency at Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.

In 1962, Jones opened a private practice in Houston’s Third Ward. Her influence continued to grow: in 1975, she became the first woman to chair the Council on Scientific Assembly for the National Medical Association (NMA) the largest organization of Black physicians in the United States. In 1985, she was elected the first woman president of the association. In 1997, the Edith Irby Jones M.D. Hospital was opened in her honor in Houston.

Throughout her life, she received numerous awards, including honorary doctorates from Knoxville College, Missouri Valley College, and others.

Dr. Jones passed away on July 15, 2019, in Houston, Texas, at the age of 91. She had married James B. Jones in 1948, and the couple had three children together.

The post Edith Irby Jones (1927–2019) appeared first on BlackPast.org.