Mississippi Health Project

Surgeon General Thomas Parran called the project "one of the greatest efforts of volunteer public health" he had ever seen.

Many Southern African Americans worked in low-paying jobs, such as maids, laborers, and farm hands (sharecroppers) in "separate but equal" facilities.

[citation needed] During the time of the project, Mississippi's Health Department did not treat African Americans due to segregation of facilities.

[4] Dorothy Celeste Boulding Ferebee, a physician and Alpha Kappa Alpha's tenth International President, served as the first medical director for the Mississippi Health Project; the "seven year program stands as one [of] the most impressive examples of voluntary public health work ever conducted by black physicians in the Jim Crow South, touching thousands of black Mississippians at a time when they had virtually no access to professional medical care.

[8] Health and food workshops were given by the sorority to bring attention to the region's high malnutrition rate.

[6] The United States Supreme Court's unanimous ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) outlawed segregation of public facilities.

Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS), along with a group of Jackson residents, converted a former retail mall into a major medical facility in the region.

Dororthy Ferebee served as medical director for the Mississippi Health Project.
Dororthy Ferebee served as medical director for the Mississippi Health Project.
Seated: Yvonne T. Maddox, NICHD Deputy Director; Linda White, Worldwide Head of AKA; and Juanita Doty, AKA Program Chair. Standing: Representatives from NIH Institutes and Jackson, Mississippi.