Black Women Doctors: Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon

Abstract

In 1891 it was rare for any woman to become a board-certified physician, but when Halle Tanner Dillon passed the Alabama State Medical Examination, even the New York Times took notice. While some southern newspapers had scoffed at the idea of a black woman even applying to take the exam, the Times noted that Johnson passed this “unusually severe” ten-day written exam to become “not only the first colored female physician, but the first woman of any race” to officially practice medicine in Alabama.