Dr. Natalia Tanner was the first African American to be accepted into the residency program at the University of Chicago, the first African American board certified pediatrician in Detroit and the first African American woman fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Zee Edgell is the author of four novels including Beka Lamb (1982), In Times Like These (1991), and Time and the River (2007).
Teresa Crespo de Salvador is the author of ten books, most of them poetry collections and children’s books.
Zaidy Zouain is the author of the poetry collection, Lilibeth (1979) and a number of essays, including Ensayos históricos sobre Martí (Historical Essays on Martí) and Ensayos históricos sobre la Batalla de Santiago (Historical Essays on the Battle of Santiago).
Pura Belpré arrived in New York City in 1921 and discovered a need to connect the growing Hispanic communities across the city’s boroughs.
Dr. Roselyn Epps was the first African American local president of the American Medical Women’s Association, the first African American and first woman to become president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the first African American elected national president of the American Medical Women’s Association and the first African American woman president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia.
Dr. Vivian Pinn was the first African American woman to chair an academic pathology department in the United States, at Howard University College of Medicine, and the first full-time director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Rosalyn P. Scott was a founding member of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons and the Association of Black Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons. She was the first Mary A. Fraley Fellow at the Texas Heart Institute, the first African American woman to be trained in thoracic surgery and the first African American woman to be granted membership in the Society of University Surgeons.
Dr. Renee Jenkins was the first African American president of the Society of Adolescent Medicine and the first African American elected as president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole became the second African American woman to receive an M.D. degree in the United States.