Dorothy Celeste Boulding Ferebee was an African-American obstetrician and civil rights activist.
Background
Doctor Ferebee was born to Benjamin Richard Boulding, a railroad superintendent, and Florence Boulding, a teacher, in Norfolk, Virginia. When her mother became ill, Dorothy went to live with a great-aunt in Boston, Massachusetts, where she graduated from Simmons College in 1920 and was in the top five of her Tufts University Medical School graduating class in 1924.
Career
Early Doctor Ferebee was affiliated with Howard University"s Medical school, starting in 1927 as an instructor of Obstetrics, and later as the medical director of the Howard University Health Service from 1949-1968, all while maintaining her own private practice. She was also instrumental in establishing the Southeast Neighborhood House, an adjunct of the whites-only Friendship House medical center, to provide medical care and other community services to African-Americans in Washington, District of Columbia She served as the first medical director for the Mississippi Health Project, "a seven year program stands as one the most impressive examples of voluntary public health work ever conducted by black physicians in the Jim Crow South, touching thousands of black Mississippians at a time when they had virtually no access to professional medical care". She served as the tenth International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority from 1939 until 1941.
She also served as the director of health services at Howard University Medical School from 1949 until 1968.
From 1969 to 1972, Doctor Ferebee served at the national fourth vice president of Girl Scouts of the United States of America. The college also awards several scholarships in her name each year.
Personal life
Ferebee was married in 1930 to a dentist, Claude Thurston Ferebee. He was a Howard University College of Dentistry professor, with whom she had twins, Dorothy and Claude Junior.
Ferebee died on September 14, 1980, in Washington District of Columbia