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Joycelyn Elders, the first person in the state of Arkansas to become board certified in pediatric endocrinology, was the fifteenth Surgeon General of the United States, the first African American and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public Health Service. Long an outspoken advocate of public health, Elders was appointed Surgeon General by President Clinton in 1993.

Born to poor farming parents in 1933, Joycelyn Elders grew up in a rural, segregated, poverty-stricken pocket of Arkansas. She was the eldest of eight children, and she and her siblings had to combine work in the cotton fields from age 5 with their education at a segregated school thirteen miles from home. They often missed school during harvest time, September to December.

After graduating from high school, she earned a scholarship to the all-black liberal arts Philander Smith College in Little Rock. While she scrubbed floors to pay for her tuition, her brothers and sisters picked extra cotton and did chores for neighbors to earn her $3.43 bus fare. In college, she enjoyed biology and chemistry, but thought

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M. Joycelyn Elders, MD (First African American and the Second Woman to Become U.S. Surgeon General)

Minnie Joycelyn Jones was born in Schaal, Arkansas in 1933 to sharecropper parents. She and her seven younger siblings often worked in the cotton fields, frequently missing school, primarily during harvest time, September to December. Joycelyn Jones entered Philander Smith College, an historically Black college in Little Rock, AR, at the age of 15 on a scholarship from United Methodist Church. Graduating in only three years, she joined the US Army and trained in physical therapy in Houston, TX. In 1956, she enrolled in the University of Arkansas Medical School on the GI Bill. Four years later, she was the only woman to graduate from the school, earning her medical degree. 1960 was also the year that she married Oliver Elders.

Dr. Joycelyn Elders completed her training and earned a master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Arkansas in 1967. She joined the faculty of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine as a clinician and researcher in pediatric endocrinolo

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Minnie Joycelyn Elders, known as Joycelyn Elders, is a pediatrician and professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1953, Elders began to work with the US Army, where she trained as a physical therapist, being the only African American woman in her training class. Elders eventually became a medical doctor in 1956, specializing in pediatric endocrinology. In 1993, then US President Bill Clinton appointed Elders as the Surgeon General for the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, which she served as until 1994. At that time, Elders was the first African American to hold the position of Surgeon General in the US. Throughout her career, Elders often spoke about controversial topics, like comprehensive sexual health education and abortion. During her time as Surgeon General, Elders advocated for universal health care coverage, promoting comprehensive sexual health education and bringing awareness to teen pregnancy in the US.

Joycelyn Elders was born Minnie Lees Jones in Schaal, Arkansas, on 13 August 1933. Elders was the