July 31, 2007

With her confirmation in 1993 as the U.S. surgeon general, Howard County native Joycelyn Elders became the second African American in the history of the United States to serve in a cabinet-level position. Nominated by President Bill Clinton, she had previously served as the director of the Arkansas Department of Health when Clinton was governor. The twenty-year-old Elders is shown here with her physical therapy class, while she served in the U.S. Army’s Medical Specialists Corps in 1954.