The unmarked graves of two notable African American sisters have been acknowledged with headstones throughout a program and luncheon in Monrovia on Could 3.
A capability crowd joined in saluting the lives and legacies of Anna H. Jones and Dr. Sophia B. Jones at a program at Second Baptist Church. The occasion concluded with the dedication of the grave markers at Reside Oak Memorial Park.
The sisters, born within the 1850s, have been pioneers in schooling and medication, overcoming racial and gender obstacles. Each sisters died in 1932. Their shut good friend W.E.B. Du Bois, co-founder of the NAACP, marked every of their passings in his nationwide journal, The Disaster.
Anna was a visionary educator, suffragist, and civil rights chief. She taught at Wilberforce College in Ohio as nicely served as Dean of Ladies. Later, she turned the primary African American instructor in Kansas Metropolis after which the primary African American principal of Douglass College, a public faculty for African People.
Additionally, Anna based the Kansas Metropolis Coloured Ladies’s League, was a founding member of the Nationwide Affiliation of Coloured Ladies’s Golf equipment, and in 1900 delivered a paper on the first Pan-African Congress in London.
Associated Hyperlinks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04hdereNC-8.
www.monrovialegacyproject.org.
Finally, she settled together with her siblings at 1301 S. Shamrock Ave. in Monrovia, had a small orange ranch and continued her battle for social justice by founding the “Anna H. Jones Membership,” which nonetheless going exists, to assist native graduates pursue a school schooling.
Sophia was equally achieved within the medical discipline. After incomes an undergraduate diploma on the College of Toronto, she was denied admission its medical faculty due to her race. Undaunted, she pursued her dream within the U.S., and in 1885 turn into the primary African American lady to graduate from the College of Michigan Medical College.
She turned the primary Black feminine college member at Spelman Faculty in Atlanta, establishing its nursing program. Sophia went on to show at Wilberforce College, serve at Frederick Douglass Hospital, and publish influential work on public well being. She, too, spent her closing years on the household residence on South Shamrock.
Her life is captured by Canadian professor John Steckley in his ebook, “Sophia B. Jones: The First Canadian Black Girl to Turn out to be a Physician.” (2024)
Individuals within the dedication program included the sisters’ nice grandnieces, Dr. Alexis Thompson and Renée Cochée, and nice grandnephew, Dr. Brian Thompson.
“I didn’t find out about these paternal aunties till I used to be in school. My cousin, Renée Cochée, did this family tree work. It was my mom, Naomi, who pushed my sister [Alexis] and I to pursue schooling,” mentioned Brian, who works in emergency medication at Kaiser Permanente Hospital.
Alexis, chief of Hematology at Youngsters’s Hospital in Philadelphia, famous, “There are 4 era of our household right here at present and we’ve three generations of docs. We come from these ‘superb ancestral aunties’.” She added that they refined what it means to “sustain with the Jones.”
The mixed efforts of a number of folks and organizations resulted within the presentation of this system and grave markers together with Sandy Burud and Monrovia Historic Society, Lois Gaston and Monrovia ChangeMakers, Jennifer Perdue, who researched the sisters’ graves, and her husband, Randy Montgomery, who created and donated the grave markers.
Different sponsors embody Second Baptist Church, Monrovia Historic Museum, Monrovia Historic Preservation Group, Monrovia Duarte Black Alumni Affiliation, Anna H. Jones Membership, Reside Oak Cemetery, and Valley Monument.
A video on the sisters and their household will be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04hdereNC-8.
Susie Ling and Sandy Burud contributed to this text.
