Celebrating Cultural Heritage at the VCU School of Dentistry
Please make plans to join our inaugural Diversity Dialogues series. Learn more in this outstanding article.
by Carlos S. Smith, DDS, MDiv, FACDDirector – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion VCU School of Dentistry and VCU Dental CareDirector of Ethics CurriculumAssistant Professor Department of General Practice
“When we go to the doctor, he or she will not begin to treat us without taking our history – and not just our history but that of our parents and grandparents before us. The doctor will not see us until we have filled out our many pages on a clipboard that is handed to us upon arrival. The doctor will not hazard a diagnosis until he or she knows the history going back generations.”
As we fill out the pages of our medical past and our current complaints, what our bodies have been exposed to and what they have survived, it does us no good to pretend that certain ailments have not beset us, to deny the full truths of what brought us to this moment. Few problems have ever been solved by ignoring them.
Looking beneath the history of one’s country is like learning that alcoholism or depression runs in one’s family or that suicide has occured more often than might be usual or, with the advances in medical genetics, discovering that one has inherited the markers of a BRCA mutation for breast cancer. You don’t ball up in a corner with guilt or shame at these discoveries. You don’t, if you are wise, forbid any mention of them. In fact, you do the opposite. You educate yourself. You talk to people who have been through it and to specialists who have researched it. You learn the consequences and obstacles, the options and treatment. You may pray over it and meditate over it. Then you take precautions to protect yourself and succeeding generations and work to ensure that these things, whatever they are, don’t happen again.”
Excerpt taken from Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020)
by Pulitzer Prize Winning author Isabel Wilkerson
History is most commonly defined as the study of past events, particularly relating to human affairs. As VCU School of Dentistry continues to make clear our deep commitments to belonging and inclusion, we will begin highlighting the significance of various cultural heritage months paying tribute to the rich diversity of our School of Dentistry community of students, faculty, staff, alumni, patients and friends.
The precursor to Black History Month, was actually a week-long celebration founded by historian Carter G. Woodson in 1926. The first Black History Month celebration actually occured on the campus of noted Kent State University in 1970. President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
As it relates to health care, African Americans have made countless contributions to the betterment of all humanity. In fact, one of the first named individuals to practice dentistry in the state of Virginia was likely a Black man. Peter Hawkins, referenced in medical historian Wyndham Blanton’s, Medicine in Virginia in the Eighteenth Century, refers to Hawkins as a “tooth-drawer, who never heard the word dentist, did all the work and all the mischief in the dental line.” The late Dr. Francis Foster, noted Richmond dentist and historian, penned a history of African American dentists in a 1997 article of the VDA’s Virginia Dental Journal drawing attention to the lesser known history of centuries of African American dentist contributions to American life.
Advocacy for all, a hallmark of the dental profession, has been paramount to the African American dental community for generations. Did you know that the integration of America’s southern hospitals was due to the efforts of an African American dentist? In 1962, Dr. George Simkins, Jr., a Greensboro, NC, dentist, and other black dentists, physicians, and patients filed a lawsuit claiming federal support for Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital and Wesley Long Hospital, local institutions that served only white patients, was unconstitutional. (One of Simkins’ patients had an abscessed tooth and needed surgery; Greensboro’s black hospital didn’t have space for him and the whites-only hospitals refused to treat him.) While the plaintiffs initially lost, they appealed, resulting in the Supreme Court decision, Simkins v. Moses H. Cone Hospital, that set in motion the desegregation of hospitals throughout the South.
The VCU School of Dentistry’s first African American graduate, Dr. James Avery Booker Jr, DDS, MD, would celebrate a 60th class reunion this year were he still alive today. In celebration of that fact, this month, Black History Month, we will launch our new virtual conversation series: Diversity Dialogues – Honoring our past, celebrating our present and ensuring an equitable and inclusive future.
Please join us on Tuesday, February 16th at 5pm for a conversation with Dr. Booker’s daughter, Dr. Karla L. Booker in honoring his life and legacy. You may register via the VCU School of Dentistry Office of Continuing Education here.