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ADDRESSING A PROBLEM: |
More black dental school applicants needed:
Summer program may help
In an effort to encourage more African-American students to choose careers in dentistry and medicine, the UT Dental Branch (as part of The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and in conjunction with the UT Medical School) since 2005 has been one of 12 sites in the country offering the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program (SMDEP), a project funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Under the program, approximately 80 under-represented and under-served students get free tuition, housing and meals for six weeks in the summer at UTHSC while learning about dentistry, medicine and science. The students, rising sophomores or juniors in college, also get clinical experience and career counseling as part of the package.
The program has been offered at UTHSC in 2006 and 2007. Each year, a full third of the Summer Medical and Dental Education Program students have been black.
H. Philip Pierpont, D.D.S., associate dean for student and alumni affairs at UTDB, said the 2008 school year will offer the first look at whether the summer program has had a positive effect on the number of black applicants for dental school. Traditionally, blacks make up about 4 percent of applicants to the Dental Branch.
Pierpont said the Dental Branch also has a partnership agreement for a dental early acceptance program with Prairie View A&M University and eight other minority-serving universities in Texas. |
UTDB Associate Professor and Urgent Care Clinic Director C.D. Johnson, D.D.S., collects information on dental history.
Black History & Dentistry
African-Americans faced discrimination,
yet pressed ahead for progress
By C.D. Johnson, D.D.S.
According to The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, a Spanish Moor slave named Esteban was providing oral health care as early as 1528 in the region that would become Texas. Historical records also mention both “Simon” in the late 1600s and native-born black American Peter Hawkins in 1765 for their ability to extract teeth and lance and relieve gum boils.
Harvard University School of Dental Medicine produced the first two African-American dental graduates in the U.S. – Dr. Robert Tanner Freeman in 1869, and Dr. George Grant (inventor of the modern golf tee) in 1870. Grant also became the first African-American faculty member at Harvard.
Both Howard University, founded in 1881 in Washington, D.C. and Meharry Medical College of Dentistry (1886) in Nashville, Tenn. were formed to address the health concerns of the African-American population. Dr. Ida Gray, famous for her anti-lynching campaigns, became the first American black woman to earn a degree in dentistry (University of Michigan, 1890).
The National Dental Association (NDA) was formed in 1932 under the National Negro Medical Association of physicians, dentists and pharmacists, while the first organization of Colored Dentists was founded in 1900.
The impact of the Supreme Court’s 1896 ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, creating the “separate-but-equal” doctrine, was devastating for minorities in the U.S., as the doctrine was used to justify segregation on the basis of race. Among other things, it kept African-Americans out of Texas dental schools.
Of the 3,000 dentists in the United States in 1897 — just one year after that crippling ruling — fewer than 200 were African-Americans. This small pool of black dentists had to serve a black population of 8.8 million in 1900. When Texas opened its first dental school, The Texas Dental College, in 1905, and its second school, Baylor College of Dentistry, later the same year, neither school accepted black students.
Although today its membership is open to all dentists, in the early years of the Texas Dental Association, non-whites were barred as members. At one point, it was mandated that the Texas Dental Hygiene Association change its constitution to restrict its membership to “whites only,” but the association refused.
When the UT Dental Branch at Houston made the decision to integrate, Mortiz Craven and Zeb Poindexter II became the first two black dental students in Texas, attending UTDB. In 1956, Poindexter became the school’s first black graduate.
| UT-Austin Web site
offers more about black history
The Center for African and African-American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin has compiled a list of Internet resources on the subject of black history. For more information, visit: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/subject/african/afweb.html |
However, Craven and Poindexter were not the first black students accepted at a Texas dental school. Joe Willie, D.D.S., was the first black student accepted – seeking to transfer from Meharry – but like all of the black students before Poindexter and Craven, Willie was ultimately denied matriculation and had to attend an out-of-state dental school.
The 1930 U.S. Census reported 1,773 black dentists, of whom 98 percent were males. Because the Texas Board of Dental Examiners recycles the numbers assigned to state dental licenses, it is difficult to verify who was the first licensed black dentist in Texas; however, it is thought that Dr. I.V. Hurd (Meharry) was the first. He practiced in San Antonio and was the recipient of the NAACP Humanitarian Award. He also was president of the Gulf State Dental Association (the state component of the NDA).
For African-Americans, the challenges of getting an education, starting a practice and simply enjoying life were complicated by discriminatory practices that varied from blatant to subtle. As community leaders, black dentists often joined together to achieve change.
Several black dentists – including Tex Allen, D.D.S., (Howard University graduate, and father of famous sisters Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad); Truck Ford, D.D.S., (Meharry); James Burton, D.D.S. (UTDB),; Joe Willie, D.D.S., (Meharry); Dr. Covington (Howard), and others — joined forces and brought suit against companies and organizations with racist policies. This same group of dental community leaders also fought successfully for integration of Texas beaches.
The Houston Public Library on Scott Street is named for Houston-area dentist Lonnie E. Smith, D.D.S., who filed suit in the 1940s after being denied the right to vote in the Texas Democratic primary. At the time, Texas was a one-party state, so not being allowed to vote in the primary effectively denied black citizens a say in political decisions. In 1944, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Allwright that “… blacks could not constitutionally be prohibited from voting in the Democratic primary even by party officials.”
The first black dentist in Houston was Charles A. George, and the local chapter of the National Dental Association is named in his honor. The NDA is a professional organization for minority dentists. A chapter of the Student National Dental Association was formed at UTDB during the 1970s with six members.
Today – four decades later – 461 students are enrolled at the UT Dental Branch in Houston. Only 2 percent are black. |
