NOW AVAILABLE!!
In this moment of national reckoning about the American systems that have upheld racism and sexism, the medical community is by no means exempt. Of the esteemed American doctors who have made famous contributions to medicine, how many can you recall learning about who were black women? No complete history of black women physicians in the United States exists, and what little mention is made to these women in existing histories is often insubstantial or altogether incorrect.
Beginning with Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first black woman to graduate from medical school just fourteen months after the Emancipation Proclamation, TWICE AS HARD introduces readers to the lives and achievements of prominent black women physicians all the way up to the present, spotlighting Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey who, in 2003, became the first woman and first African American to lead the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and oversee its $8 billion endowment. She was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Forbes multiple times.
Not just constructing a history, Brown sets out to inspire future generations of black women who will pursue medicine, creating a new class of role models in the women whose histories she shares. As TWICE AS HARD shows, overcoming racism and sexism to become a doctor was a monumental feat in and of itself. But beyond this, the physicians highlighted in TWICE AS HARD made significant contributions to medicine and healthcare, and this new work establishes a lineage of black women doctors whose accomplishments are undeniably important and inspirational. Now a medical student, Jasmine Brown is shedding light on the black women doctor role models she grew up without.