Dr. Justina ’The Lady Doctor’ Ford
b. 22 January, 1871, d. 14 October 1952
Dr. Ford was an American physician, most notably the first African American female physician in Colorado.
She graduated from Hering Medical College in 1899, and worked briefly in Alabama before moving on to Colorado with her first husband, Rev. John Ford, in 1902.
It was in Colorado that she was granted her medical license, though the examiner told her that he ”didn’t feel comfortable taking a fee from her, since she already had two strikes against her, the first being a woman, and the second being colored”. In spite of POC being barred form working in hospitals, Dr. Ford forged on, opening a private practice in her home. There she specialized in gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics.
For over 50 years, she practiced medicine out of her home, delivering over 7,000 babies and catering to poor whites, POC, and non-English speaking immigrants who had been turned away from hospitals. Oftentimes, she worked in exchange for goods or services, rather than for cash.
She practiced medicine until two weeks before her death in 1952. Four months before her death, she is quoted as saying, “…When all the fears, hate, and even some death is over, we will really be brothers as God intended us to be in this land. This I believe. For this I have worked all my life.
Her home in Five Points, Denver, was turned into the Black American West Museum in 1971.
In 1985 she was inducted into the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame, and in 1989 she was named a Medical Pioneer of Colorado by the Colorado Medical Society.