As the calendar pages turn from what we are told is Black History Month we feel it is important to continue to celebrate Black History. Especially with all the efforts to whitewash and even downright erase our history, Black Westchester is committed to continuing to document and celebrate because not only is African American History, American History, but it is to be celebrated 365 days a year.
Kicking things off, March 1 is a significant day in Black history for multiple reasons, including the graduation of Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first Black woman to earn a medical degree, the enrollment of African Americans in Visalia, California public schools, and much much more!
Rebecca Lee Crumpler graduates
- On March 1, 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to earn a medical degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College in Boston.
- She practiced community medicine in Boston and treated formerly enslaved refugees after the Civil War.
- She wrote one of the first medical manuals by an African American doctor in the United States.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first African American woman to earn a medical degree. For much of her career, she practiced community medicine in Boston, but in the aftermath of the Civil War, she traveled south to treat thousands of formerly enslaved refugees. Crumpler wrote one of the first medical manuals by an African American doctor in the United States—and by a woman.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was born Rebecca Davis in 1831 in Christiana, Delaware. She spent her formative years living in Philadelphia with her aunt, a respected community healer. After moving to Massachusetts and practicing nursing for several years, Rebecca Davis, now Rebecca Lee, applied to the New England Female Medical College in Boston, the first women’s medical school in the nation. The college admitted her in 1860 based on her nursing experience and strong recommendations from doctors familiar with her work. She graduated in 1864 as a “Doctress of Medicine.”
During her time in Boston, Rebecca Lee provided medical care to the residents of her neighborhood on the north slope of Beacon Hill. It was Boston’s largest Black community, home to Underground Railroad safe houses and antislavery organizing. Rebecca Lee’s first husband, Wyatt Lee, died in 1863 from tuberculosis. In 1865, she married Arthur Crumpler, who, like Lee, had escaped slavery in the American South.
After graduating from medical school, Rebecca Lee Crumpler set out for Richmond, Virginia, to provide care for newly free Black people displaced by the ongoing civil war. She responded to a call for doctors from the Freedman’s Bureau, established to aid the masses of newly emancipated people at the end of the Civil War. Crumpler faced discrimination from fellow medical professionals as both a woman and an African American. Nonetheless, as she wrote in her book, she cared for “a very large number of the indigent” in a “population of over 30,000″—people living largely in tent camps without enough food, clothing or proper sanitation. She cared especially for Black women and children, who were otherwise largely denied medical care.
After serving in Richmond, Crumpler returned to Boston. She opened a clinic in her neighborhood where people could seek care “regardless of remuneration.” Based on her decades of experience treating women and children, Crumpler wrote a Book of Medical Discourses, published in 1883. Her book urges parents to be vigilant in caring for their children and emphasizes the importance of what doctors today consider the “social determinants of health.” Crumpler’s Book of Medical Discourses was among the first medical guidebooks published by a Black doctor in the United States.
Crumpler died in 1895, at the age of 64, near Boston. Her grave remained unmarked until 2020, when the Hyde Park Historical Society launched a fundraiser for a headstone. It now reads: “The community and the Commonwealth’s four medical schools honor Dr. Rebecca Crumpler for her ceaseless courage, pioneering achievements, and historic legacy as a physician, author, nurse, missionary, and advocate for health equity and social justice.”
African Americans enroll in Visalia public schools
- On March 1, 1890, African Americans were able to enroll in all public schools in Visalia, California.
- Edmond Wysinger hired attorneys and filed a writ of mandate on behalf of his son, Arthur, who was denied admission to Visalia High School based on race.
- The Supreme Court of California reversed the order and granted his admission into the school.
March 1, 1780—Pennsylvania becomes perhaps the first state to abolish slavery. There is some confusion about the effective dates of the laws passed during this period, which called for the gradual elimination of slavery. The honor of being the first state to ban slavery may actually go to Vermont.
March 1, 1875—Congress enacts the first Civil Rights Bill. It granted Blacks the right to equal treatment in inns, on public transportation, in theaters, and places of amusement. However, with the end of the progressive Reconstruction period, Jim Crow laws were passed throughout the South, which largely ignored the Civil Rights Bill. African Americans did not regain most of the rights granted in 1875 until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
March 1, 1892 – Ms. Anna M. Mangin invents the pastry fork
March 1, 1914 – “Invisible Man” Author Ralph Ellison is born. Ralph Ellison was a scholar and writer. He was born Ralph Waldo Ellison in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and was named by his father after Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ellison was best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the National Book Award in 1953. He also wrote Shadow and Act (1964), a collection of political, social, and critical essays, and Going to the Territory (1986). For The New York Times, the best of these essays, in addition to the novel, put him “among the gods of America’s literary Parnassus.” A posthumous novel, Juneteenth, was published after being assembled from voluminous notes he left after his death.
March 1, 1927—Actor, Humanitarian, Entertainer, and Political Activist Harry Belafonte is born Harold George Belafonte on this day in Harlem, N.Y., to Jamaican immigrant parents. Belafonte developed an early flair for entertainment, and in the post-World War II period, he became one of the most popular vocalists in America and made Calypso popular throughout the nation. In 1959, he became the first African American to win an Emmy. However, from the 1960s forward, he mixed his entertainment career with active participation in the Civil Rights Movement and other social causes. He has been a frequent critic of Republican conservatism and conservative Blacks. In 2002, he was accused of labeling Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice “house niggers” for their support of President Bush’s right wing domestic and foreign policies.
March 1, 1949 – Joe Louis, known as ‘The Brown Bomber,’ retires from boxing as the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world. He held the title for 11 years and eight months, the longest reign in boxing history at the time. He is considered to be one of the greatest in boxing history and was ranked number one on Ring Magazine’s list of 100 greatest punchers of all time. Louis held the heavyweight title for over 106 months, more than anyone else before or after him, recording 25 successful defenses of the title. In 2005, Louis was named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization.
March 1, 1960—From the 1st to the 30th, one thousand Alabama State students marched on the state capitol and held a protest meeting.
March 1, 1963—Air Force Captain Edward J. Dwight Jr. was named to fourth class of aerospace research pilots at Edwards Air Base and became the first Black astronaut candidate.
March 1, 1966 – Journalist Don Lemon is born. He is best known for being a host on CNN from 2014 until 2023 for Don Lemon Tonight (formerly CNN Tonight with Don Lemon) and now the Don Lemon Show Podcast. He has received numerous awards for his special news coverage, including three regional Emmy Awards. In 2002, Lemon was honored with an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the capture of the Washington D.C. area sniper.. He anchored weekend news programs on local television stations in Alabama and Pennsylvania during his early days as a journalist.
March 1, 1967—On this day in Black history, the U.S. House of Representatives expelled flamboyant and outspoken Black New York Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. from Congress for allegedly misappropriating funds. However, in June 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the expulsion unconstitutional, and Powell returned to Congress, but without his seniority. He lost his seat to current Representative Charles Rangel in 1970, and Powell died on April 4, 1972. During his most powerful years in Congress, Powell headed the House Labor and Education Committee and used his powers to help pass a wide range of civil rights and progressive social legislation.
March 1, 1994 – Leonard S. Coleman, Jr. elected president of the National Baseball League.
