Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson was an American physician who in 1891 became the first female African-American doctor in Alabama.
Background
Johnson was born Halle Tanner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the oldest daughter of nine children to Benjamin Tucker and Sarah Elizabeth Tanner. She worked with her father on The Christian Recorder, a publication of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he ministered.
Career
Early years
Johnson was well educated and as a young girl became familiar with the work of prominent African-American intellectuals. A widow at 24, Johnson returned to live with her family and decided to enter medical school. After three years of study at the Woman"s Medical College of Pennsylvania, she earned her Doctor of Medicine in 1891, graduating with honors.
He hoped to find an African-American physician to serve the school and its surrounding community.
Johnson accepted Washington"s offer of United States$600 a month, including lodging and meals, and arrived to begin her service in August 1891. Before beginning her new job, however, young Doctor Dillon had to face a significant obstacle: passing the Alabama State Medical Examination.
The very fact that she was sitting for the examination caused a public stir in Montgomery, Alabama. She spent ten days taking the exam, addressing a different area of medicine each day.
Her examiners included the directors and leading figures of most of the state"s major medical institutions.
Dillon impressed them with her responses and she passed the test. Doctor Dillion was the first woman to practice medicine in the state of Alabama. During her brief tenure at Tuskegee she was responsible for the health care of the school"s 450 students and 30 faculty and staff
She also established a training school for nurses and founded the Lafayette Dispensary to serve the health care needs of local residents, often mixing medicines herself for their use.
She also taught two classes each day. Personal life
The couple moved first to Columbia, South Carolina, where Reverend Johnson became president of Allen University, a private school for black students.
They later moved from Hartford, Connecticut to Atlanta, Georgia, and then to Princeton, New Jersey, as Reverend Johnson pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology. Johnson died in Nashville from complications during childbirth.