2011 CVM News: Event to celebrate African-American veterinarians

This news item for A Veterinary Legacy blog is about: While a veterinary student at Cornell (2009-2013), Dr. Jennifer Morrissey took an interest in the history of early African-American veterinary students at Cornell. She suspected that the previously-accepted university reports failed to accurately identify some of the black students who graduated in the early years, prior to the well-known Aubrey Robinson in 1920. With a determination and yearning for clues that was really quite remarkable, she deciphered class photos with tenacity, corresponded with experts in the field, and spent many hours in Cornell’s Kroch Library. Morrissey was eventually able to identity six black graduates between 1910 and 1919. She was proudly able to verify that Cornell’s contribution to educating African-American veterinarians this early in the profession’s history was unprecedented