Confirmed as the 16th Surgeon General of the United States on September 7, 1993, Joycelyn Elders (born 1933) was the first African American and only the second female to head up the U.S. Public Health Service. In her brief 15-month tenure, Elders added tobacco use, national health care, and drug and alcohol abuse to her platform.

Jocelyn Elders was born Minnie Jones on August 13, 1933, in the southwestern farming community of Schaal, Arkansas. She took the name Jocelyn in college. She was the first of Haller and Curtis Jones's eight children. Living in a poor, segregated pocket of the country, she and her siblings struck a balance between laboring in the cotton fields and attending an all-black school 13 miles from home. One of her earliest childhood memories was being taught to read by her mother, Haller, who had an eighth grade education which was quite remarkable for an African American woman...