| Summary: | Physician Dr. Edith Irby Jones was born on December 23, 1927 in Mayflower, Arkansas. She attended Langston Secondary School in Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 1944, Jones was awarded a scholarship to attend Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee. She majored in chemistry, biology and physics. In 1948, nine years before the "Little Rock Nine" integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, Jones became the first African American admitted to University of Arkansas College of Medicine. In 1963, she received an academic appointment as a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Later, in 1985, Jones became the first woman to be elected president of the National Medical Association. In 1986, she led the United States Task Force on Health to Haiti, and in 1997, the Edith Irby Jones M.D. Hospital was opened in Houston, Texas. In 1979, Arkansas honored her with its annual "Edith Irby Jones Day".
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