Edith Mae Irby was born on December 23, 1927, near Conway in Faulkner County, Arkansas, to Mattie (née Buice) and Robert Irby. At the age of eight, she lost her father, an older sister died at 12 years of age from typhoid fever, and Irby herself suffered from rheumatic fever as a child. These were motivating factors in her desire to help those who were underserved and impoverished and which propelled her toward a career in medicine. Her mother relocated the family to Hot Springs, where Irby graduated from Langston Secondary School in 1944. After winning a scholarship, she studied chemistry, biology and physics at Knoxville College in Knoxville, Tennessee. Irby was well aware of the role she was playing and obligation she had for the black community. One of her teachers had helped her attain the scholarship, members of the local African American community collected change and the black press ran a campaign in the Arkansas State-Press which they donated to help with her tuition and living expenses. During her schooling, she secretly made trips with teams of workers from the NAACP to enroll members for the organization. She graduated with her BS from Knoxville College in 1948 and then completed a graduate course at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois to prepare for Medical School.
That same year, she was admitted to the University of Arkansas Medical School, as part of a racially mixed class, and made headlines across the United States from New York to Oregon to North Dakota to Texas. She became the first African American to be accepted in any school in the Southern United States and the news was carried in September 1948 in The Crisis, Life Magazine's January 31, 1949 issue, the January 1949 edition of Ebony, as well as other national publications such as Time and The Washington Post. While Jones was accepted to the school, she was still the recipient of a number of racist injustices, including being forced to use separate amenities such as housing and dining. During her second year of school, Irby and Dr. James B. Jones, a professor married; they subsequently had three children. In 1952, Jones received her Doctor of Medicine degree, as the first African-American graduate from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and was accepted to complete the first residency by an African American at a hospital in Arkansas.
Visitation will be Friday, July 26, 2019 from 11:00 AM - 4:30 PM in Rose Chapel @ Mabrie Memorial Mortuary, 5000 Almeda Road, Houston, TX, 77004. WAKE: Friday, July 26, 2019, from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, 500 Clay Street, Houston, TX, 77002
Omega Omega Service by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. will began at 7:00 PM at the church.
Visitation: July 27, 2019, from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM, Celebration of Life Service: Saturday, JUL
27.
11:00 AM , Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, 500 Clay Street, Houston, TX, 77002.
Final services for Dr. Jones will be held at her hometown church on Monday, July 29, 2019 at 11:00 AM, Union Missionary Baptist Church, 219 Gulpha St., Hot Springs, AR 71901. Her committal service and earthly resting place will be in Greenwood Cemetery.
Arrangements for the Hot Springs services are entrusted to Carrigan Memorial Funeral Services. Flowers may be delivered to the church on Monday morning for the Hot Springs servcie if you desire to send them.
Funeral services in Houston, TX are entrusted to Mabrie Memorial Mortuary, (713)-942-7673.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in honor of Dr. Edith Irby Jones to:
ABCCardio.org
Dr. Richard Allen Williams, Genita Evengelistic Johnson, AMA Foundation Scholarship. Donations can be made online via website.
Antioch Educational Scholarship Foundation
AESFonline.org or AESF, PO Box 981, Houston, TX 77002
Houston Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter Physical & Mental Health Program
Payments can be made via PayPal: treasurer@hmacdelta.org or HMAC, c/o Dr. Edith Irby Jones PMH, PO Box 57108, Houston, TX 77256.
