New Kentucky school could be named after first Black female doctor
A vote on naming the school could take place as early as Sept. 11.
A new middle school under construction in Fayette County, Kentucky, could be named after the first Black doctor, WUKY reports.
The Fayette County Schools Naming Committee has received a preliminary recommendation for the school’s name: Mary E. Britton Middle School.
“She was a public school teacher and activist,” Bill Bradford, chief school leadership officer, said about Britton, according to WUKY. “She later earned a medical degree and became the first female African American doctor in the state of Kentucky and she practiced locally here in Lexington.”
Britton was a physician, educator, suffragist, journalist, and civil rights activist from Lexington, Kentucky, per her bio via the Kentucky Center for African American Heritage. She graduated from the American Missionary College in Chicago with a medical degree and became the first Black woman licensed as a physician in Lexington in 1902. Britton treated patients at her home and specialized in “hydrotherapy and electrotherapy, the use of water and electricity to treat illnesses and disease,” per her bio.
Britton was one of the original members of the Kentucky Negro Education Association, established in 1877. She also served as president of the Lexington Woman’s Improvement Club. Additionally, Britton was actively involved in the Ladies Orphan Society, which founded the Colored Orphan Industrial Home in Lexington in 1892, according to her bio.
Britton’s advocacy for civil rights and women’s rights continued until her retirement in 1923. She died two years later at age 70, WUKY reports. As Bradford put it, the choice to name the school after Britton could be a “historic opportunity.”
According to Bradford’s timeline, a vote on naming the school could take place as early as Sept. 11.
The 171,893-square-foot school is being built on Polo Club Boulevard and will house approximately 1,200 students, WKYT reports.
Fall 2025 is the anticipated opening date for the new school.
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