COLORLINES/TUMBLR

seriousladies:

I know she got reblogged just about everywhere last week after her smart, frank, and endlessly quotable interview with the Root, but can we take another minute to talk about how awesome Joycelyn Elders is, please? 

Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders was born in to a poor family in segregated Arkansas in 1933. She and her family worked in the cotton fields in her youth, and attended an all-black school 13 miles from her home. She had never met a doctor until she was 16. She received a scholarship to college, afterwards joined the U.S. Army’s Women’s Medical Specialist Corps, and in 1956 entered the Arkansas Medical School on the G.I. Bill. Elders went on to become the first African American and second women to hold the office of U.S. Surgeon General in 1993-1994. Always an outspoken advocate of a variety of healthcare issues, she has drawn particular criticism for her support of contraceptive education for youth, distribution of contraceptives in schools, women’s reproductive freedom, and legalization of marijuana. In 1994, Clinton fired her from the post of Surgeon General after comments suggesting that teaching children about masturbation might be a means of keeping them from engaging in riskier sexual activity. Since then, she has returned to being a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Here, in a 2007 video for trojanevolve, she looks great in yellow and gives young ladies excellent accessory advice: always carry a condom in your purse. “When they talk about it won’t feel good, or they don’t want to use them, remind them…it won’t feel good if I’m pregnant and I can’t go to college.”

#cosign, and if you’re not following Serious Ladies, you’re missing out on some serious serious fashion.