Memorable Photos From The Ebony Files - University of Arkansas Medical School's first African American student in mixed classes - Brief Article

Ebony, July, 2000

Edith Mae Irby, the first African-American to attend mixed classes in a Southern university since the days of Reconstruction, was a curiosity to fellow students on her first day of classes at the University of Arkansas Medical School in the fall of 1948. The 22-year-old Hot Springs, Ark., coed was admitted to the medical school after the university board of trustees decided to comply with a U.S.

Supreme Court decision against Jim Crow education. A former Knoxville (Tenn.) College honor student, Irby excelled in medical school and became a successful doctor in Houston.