JOYCELYN
ELDERS
G'day folks,
Welcome to some background on another high achiever. Joycelyn
Elders became the first African-American United States Surgeon General in 1993
and only the second woman to hold the position.
Who Is Joycelyn Elders?
Joycelyn
Elders was born on August 13, 1933 in Schaal, Arkansas. She was the
daughter of sharecroppers but despite growing up in poverty, she graduated as
valedictorian of her high school class and became the first in her family to
attend college, the first person in the state of Arkansas to become board
certified in pediatric endocrinology, and the first African-American public
health administrator. In 1993, she became the 15th United States Surgeon
General, making her the first African American and only the second woman to
hold the position. Her controversial opinions about sexual health, including
her U.N. conference statements regarding masturbation, caused great
controversy, and ultimately led to her forced resignation. Elders is currently
a professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas School of
Medicine and participates in numerous public speaking events promoting the
legalization of marijuana and improvements to sexual education and public
health.
Husband and Family
While
obtaining her medical degree from the University of Arkansas and giving
physical examinations to the local high school basketball team, she met her
husband, Oliver Elders, who was the basketball coach. Within two months, the
couple married in 1960. They have two sons, Eric, born in 1963, and Kevin, born
in 1965.
Accomplishments
First African-American U.S. Surgeon General
In
September 1993, then-president Bill Clinton appointed Elders as the 15th United
States Surgeon General, making her the first African American and only the
second woman (following Antonia Novello) to hold the position. During her brief
time as U.S. Surgeon General, she continued her open, frank, and often
controversial crusades for improving sexual health education. Elders also
helped develop the Office of Adolescent Health, which is now part of the
Department of Health and Human Services. She advocated for increased access to
health care and assistance for drug and alcohol abuse to her list of major
concerns as well as the legalization of marijuana and other drugs. On these
fronts and others, Elders was ahead of the curve on many public health issues
that we have seen come to fruition today.
At a 1994 United Nations Conference, her
controversial statement about masturbation as “a part of something that perhaps
should be taught” to prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS among teens led to her
forced resignation. After serving only 15 months as U.S. Surgeon General,
Elders resigned in December 1994.
Lifelong Activism in Sex, Drugs, and Healthcare
During
her early work as a physician and pediatric endocrinologist, Elders was
treating adolescents with juvenile diabetes when she began to take notice of
the extreme dangers of early pregnancy for diabetic girls. Elders then began
teaching her young patients about the importance pregnancy prevention,
providing them with birth control and condoms. Throughout the next several
decades, she published well over a hundred papers related to juvenile diabetes
and sexual behavior and dedicated her life to public health and access to
sexual education.
In 1987, then-governor Bill Clinton appointed
Elders as Director of the Arkansas Department of Health, making her the first
African-American woman to hold this position. Always an advocate for adolescent
health and responsible decision-making, Elders was branded a “rabble rouser” by
president of the Arkansas Medical Society due to her controversial opinions on
sexual education and birth control. She was even given the nickname the “condom
queen” because she kept a “condom tree” on her government desk. During her time
in office, she successfully reduced teen pregnancy, expanded the availability
of HIV services, and worked hard to promote sex education. In 1992, she was
elected President of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officers
and a year later, appointed as U.S. Surgeon General.
Awards
Elders is
the recipient of numerous awards including the Woman of Distinction Award from
Worthen Bank, the Arkansas Democrat’s Woman of the Year, the National Governor’s
Association Distinguished Service Award, the American Medical Association’s Dr.
Nathan Davis Award, the De Lee Humanitarian Award, the National Coalition of
100 Black Women’s Candace Award for Health Science, and the Career Development
Award from the National Institute of Health. Elders was also featured in the Changing the Face of Medicine
exhibition, which honors the lives and accomplishments of women in medicine, and
is featured in the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.
In 2016, the “Joycelyn Elders Clinic” was
launched by Brighter Brains Institute, a USA nonprofit, to serve students
attending Garama Humanist Secondary School in the village of Kisinga, in
western Uganda. In the spirit of Dr. Elders’ work, the Clinic offers sex
education classes, free male and female condoms, free AFRIpads (washable,
reusable sanitary pads that last for one year), and medicine for common
diseases (malaria, parasitic worms, peptic ulcer disease, infections, etc.).
Elders
currently participates in numerous public speaking events promoting the
legalization of marijuana and improvements to sexual education and public
health. Elders is also active in fight for racial equality in medicine.
Education
Elders
was the first in her family to attend college and she did so at age 15 on an
earned four-year scholarship with assistance from her brothers and sisters who
picked extra cotton to help pay the $3.83 bus fare she needed to get to school
every day. In 1952, she received a B.S. in Biology from Philander Smith College
in Little Rock, Arkansas. Her original plan was to become a lab technician but
after hearing a speech by Edith Irby Jones, the first African-American student
at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, Elders — who hadn’t even seen
a doctor until she went to college — decided she wanted to become a physician
“to improve the lives of children.”
Elders went on to work briefly as a
nurse’s aide at a Veterans Administration hospital in Milwaukee and then joined
the U.S. Army’s Women's Medical Specialist Corps in 1953.
She was the only
African-American person in her class at Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam
Houston in San Antonio, Texas. She was stationed at Letterman Army Hospital in
San Francisco, treating wounded soldiers returning home from the Korean War. In
April 1954, Elders was licensed as a physical therapist and transferred to
Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver where she treated President Dwight D. Eisenhower
after his 1955 heart attack.
Discharged
from the U.S. Army in 1956, Elders went on to attend the University of Arkansas
Medical School with assistance from the G.I. Bill. As 1 of 3 African Americans
at the time of her entry into medical school, Elders was not allowed to eat in
the “whites only” cafeteria. Despite the systematic racism she experienced,
Elders obtained her M.D. in 1960 and M.S. in Biochemistry in 1967. In 1978,
Elders became the first person in the state of Arkansas to receive board
certification as a pediatric endocrinologist. Dr. Elders graduated from the
University of Arkansas Medical School and then became its first African-American
resident, its first African-American chief resident, and finally its first
African-American professor. Elders worked at the University of Arkansas School
of Medicine as an assistant, associate, and full professor of pediatrics from
the 1960s to 1987 and later returned as a professor emerita.
Early Life
Elders
was born Minnie Lee Jones on August 13, 1933 in Schaal, Arkansas. She was the
daughter of sharecroppers, Haller Reed and Curtis Jones and the eldest of eight
children. The family lived in poverty, sometimes without plumbing and
electricity. Throughout her childhood, she and her siblings worked the cotton
fields with their parents and helped with other farming tasks.
Even so,
education was important to her family. One of Elders' earliest memories is
being taught to read by her mother, who had an eighth grade education, which
was quite extraordinary for an African-American woman at that time. Elders
first attended Bright Star Elementary, a segregated one-room school 13 miles
from her home. A gifted child, Elders later transferred to Howard County
Training School in Tollette, Arkansas and graduated as its valedictorian at age
15, earning her a full tuition scholarship. She changed her name to Minnie
Joycelyn Lee in college and but later stopped using the name “Minnie,” which
was her grandmother’s name.
Clancy's comment: This lady sure made some great comments, and she was not scared to speak out on important issues. Good for her!
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