Like Dorsey, Dasani’s new school is known by the name of another local legend: Dr. Susan S. McKinney, who in 1870 became the first female African American doctor in New York State, and the third in the nation. To understand the magnitude of this achievement, consider that Dr. McKinney went to medical school four years after the Emancipation Proclamation, as the only Black student in her all-female school. She then graduated as valedictorian. When Dr. McKinney died in 1918, W.E.B. Du Bois gave the eulogy at her funeral.
