Dr. Edith Irby Jones
Medical pioneer who became the first African American student admitted to the University of Arkansas School of Medicine in 1948, paving the way for integration in Southern medical education.
Edith Mae Irby Jones was an American physician who was the first woman president of the National Medical Association and a founding member of the Association of Black Cardiologists. She was honored by many awards, including induction into both the University of Arkansas College of Medicine Hall of Fame and the inaugural group of women inducted into the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame. She was the first African American to be accepted as a non-segregated student at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the first Black student to attend racially mixed classes in the American South. She was the first African American to graduate from a southern medical school, first Black intern in the state of Arkansas, and later first Black intern at Baylor College of Medicine.