According to a National Right to Life report, Harvard University’s course History 167: Race, Gender, and the Law Through the Archive highlights Black women who shaped 21st-century politics and grassroots organizing.
Featured figures include Michelle Obama, Stacey Abrams, and Kamala Harris. Notably absent is Dr. Mildred Jefferson, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and the first female surgeon at Boston Medical Center.
Dr. Jefferson co-founded and served as a past president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, the organization we proudly continue today, helping lay the foundation for the modern pro-life movement in the United States.
Harvard holds her personal and professional papers at the Schlesinger Library, yet her extraordinary contributions were overlooked in the course. We remember Dr. Jefferson as a tireless advocate for the unborn, whose leadership inspired generations of pro-life activists. In a 1977 convention book, she wrote, “We are speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves; defending those who cannot defend themselves and fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. We will win the battle for life because we must.”
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