Legacy of May Edward Chinn

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

May Edward Chinn ( April 15, 1896 )

From: Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Chinn was born in Great Barrington, MA. Her father, William Lafayette, was the son of a plantation slave and owner; at the age 11, he escaped from this Virginia plantation. Her mother, Lulu Ann, was the daughter of a slave and a Chickahominy Native American, who worked as the live-in cook at the Long Island mansion of the Tiffany family of jewelers. The Tiffany family encouraged Chinn's interest in music. Groaning up, she attended musical concerts in New York City and learned to play piano, accompanying the singer Paul Robertson in the early 1920's. The Tiffany family also taught her the German and French language.

Chinn's mother who valued education, saved enough money from cooking to send Chinn to the Bordentown Manual and Training Industrial School, a New Jersey boarding school, until she contracted osteomyelitis of the jaw. Chinn remained in New York City after her surgery there, but she was too poor to finish high school. Despite her lack of diploma, she took the entrance examination to Columbia Teachers College and passed it, matriculating in 1917.

Chinn studied her first love, music, until a professor mocked her race as unfit for playing classical music. At the same time, she received high praises for her scientific paper she wrote sewage disposal, so she changed her major to science. In her senior year, she secured a full-time position as a lab technician in clinical pathology, so she completed her course work at night to graduate with a bachelor's degree in science in 1921. She proceeded to study medicine at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, becoming it's first black woman graduate in 1926. Rockefeller Institute was prepared to offer Chinn a research fellowship until it learned of her race. Harlem Hospital was the only medical institution in the city that offered Chinn an internship. Chinn was the first black woman to intern there and to accompany paramedics on ambulance calls, she confronted another obstacle when the hospital refused her practicing privileges there. Chinn established a private practice instead, seeing patients in her office and performing procedures in their homes. This experience prompted her to earn her master's degree in public health from Columbia University in 1933.Upon graduation Chinn found that no hospital would allow her practice privileges. With her fair skin and last name, many assumed that she was White or Chinese. She later told Muriel Petioni, former president of the Society of Black Physicians, that the black workers snubbed her because they assumed she was passing as white and didn't want to jeopardize her position. In 1940, Harlem Hospital granted Chinn admitting privileges, in part due to Mayor Florello La Guardia's push for integration in the wake of the Harlem riot of 1935.In 1944, the Strang Clinic hired Chinn to conduct research on cancer, and she remained there for the next 29 years. The Society of Surgical Oncology invited her to become a memeber, and in 1975, she established a society to promote black women to attend medical school. She maintained her private practice until the age of 81. While attending a reception at Columbia University in honor of a friend, Chinn collapsed and died on December 1, 1980. May Chinn was an active member of Delta Sigma Theta. In February 1921, Chinn was among the first group of women initiated into the Alpha Beta chapter of the sorority alongside Ms. Eslanda Good Robeson.

[Bilal Mahmud المكافح المخلص]

Kofi Bilal Mahmud Eid AlFitr 1443 A.H.

http://oppressedpeoplesonlineword.ning.com/profiles/blogs/6273430:B...

Kofi Bilal Mahmud

Executive Director

Oppressed Peoples Online Word 

Your Voice Since 2010

The Voice Of The Voiceless...A People Without A Voice Can Not Be Heard!

Periodically we at OPOW have to make an evaluation on our being able to sustain this effort of bringing  you stories that many of you enjoy.  We do not take adds, nor do we charge a subscription.  Much or most of our operating expense is covered by a few individuals who have been very generous over the past 13 years.

Much of our content is supplied by volunteers and myself.   With that being said, we need your support to continue this effort.  No amount is too small or too large.  Please consider becoming a much needed supporter of OPOW today.  In advance, from all of us at OPOW,  we thank you for your continued support.  

Bilal Mahmud

Executive Director OPOW

Support OPOW:  OPOW Needs Your Support - Oppressed Peoples Online Word...The Voice...

The Voice Of The Voiceless... A People Without A Voice Can Not Be Heard...

Paypal: [e-mail]

Or Cashapp: $bilal1370

Zelle: [e-mail]

Mail: Little Deep Creek LLC
P.O. Box 1241
Conley, Ga. 30288

Support OPOW Today...An Appeal From The Executive Director Bilal Ma...

Thank you from all of us here at OPOW

Visit Us On Facebook:  (2) Facebook