2017 / A commissioned installation for the Harvard School of Public Health. Installation will be on view in the school's Kresge Atrium through October, 2017, and has been purchased by HSPH.

The United States’ legacy of slavery and structural racism has minimized, and in some cases buried, the contributions to public health and medicine from minority populations, including those once legally enslaved in this country: African Americans and Native Americans. As testimony to the enduring impact of slavery, these “ghost portraits” portray significant (but often little-known) African Americans and Native Americans in public health history. Engaging in a wordless dialogue with the portraits of white men that surround them, they demand to be acknowledged, and to be seen.

Portraits include, left to right:
Dr. Gertrude Teixeira Hunter national director of health services for Project Head Start. In 1965, she helped implement the first national comprehensive health program to immunize, offer preventive medical and dental care, and treat undiagnosed health conditions in preschool children.

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte an Omaha Indian born in Nebraska, was the first Native American physician. Although few Victorian-era medical school accepted women as students, La Flesche attended the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1889 as valedictorian. She returned to the Omaha reservation in 1889 as a physician.

Dr. Paul B. Cornely first African American elected president of the American Public Health Association (APHA). He was medical director of Howard University’s Freedmen’s Hospital, and a civil rights leader who made it his mission to desegregate the country’s health care facilities.

Dr. Georgia Rooks Dwelle first alumna of Spelman College to attend medical school. In 1920, she opened the Dwelle Infirmary in Atlanta, Georgia, which was the state’s first general hospital for African Americans, and its first obstetrical hospital for African American women.

Dr. Moses Alfred Haynes
a pioneer in addressing disparities in health status, access to care and professional health education opportunities for underrepresented minorities and the poor.

Dr. Lillie Rosa Minoka-Hill daughter of a Mohawk mother and a Quaker physician father, became the second Native American physician in the U.S. She was awarded many professional honors in her lifetime, and the Oneida community adopted her by giving her the name “You-da-gent,” or “she who serves.”

[ Seen in following photo ]
Dr. Flemmie Pansy Kittrell the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in nutrition. She traveled internationally to improve nutrition, reporting on “hidden hunger” in Liberia, and working to improve nutrition in India, Japan, Central Africa, Russia, and elsewhere.

Susie Walking Bear Yellowtail daughter of an Oglala Sioux mother and a Crow father, became the first Crow registered nurse—and one of the first Native American nurses—in the United States. Susie Yellowtail founded the first professional association of Native American nurses, and in 1978 was honored by the American Indian Nurses Association as the “Grandmother of American Indian Nurses.”