Long before it became the slogan of the presidential campaign for Barack
Obama, Dorothy Ferebee (1898-1980) lived by the motto "Yes, we can." An
African American obstetrician and civil rights activist from Washington
DC, she was descended from lawyers, journalists, politicians, and a
judge. At a time when African Americans faced Jim Crow segregation,
desperate poverty, and lynch mobs, she advised presidents on civil
rights and assisted foreign governments on public health issues. Though
articulate, visionary, talented, and skillful at managing her publicity,
she was also tragically flawed.
Ferebee was president of the Alpha Kappa Alpha black service sorority
and later became the president of the powerful National Council of Negro
Women in the nascent civil rights era. She stood up to gun-toting
plantation owners to bring health care to sharecroppers through her
Mississippi Health Project during the Great Depression.
A household name in black America for forty years, Ferebee was also the
media darling of the thriving black press. Ironically, her fame and
relevance faded as African Americans achieved the political power for
which she had fought. In She Can Bring Us Home, Diane Kiesel tells
Ferebee's extraordinary story of struggle and personal sacrifice to a
new generation.