Dr. Dorothy Ferebee was a tireless advocate for racial equality
and women's health care. In 1925 in a derelict section of
Capitol Hill, she established Southeast Neighborhood House, to
provide health care for impoverished African Americans. She also
set up the Southeast Neighborhood Society, with playground and
day care for children of working mothers. At Howard University
Medical School, she was appointed director of Health Services.
She was founding president of the Women's Institute, an
organization that serves educational, community, government, and
non-profit organizations, as well as individual patients.
Dorothy Celeste Boulding was born in 1889 or 1890 in Norfolk,
Virginia. Her father's parents were former slaves. While she was
young her family moved north to Boston, Massachusetts, where
Dorothy and her brother Ruffin grew up in the middle-class
neighborhood of Beacon Hill. Her family enriched her childhood,
serving as excellent role models. With eight attorneys among
them, discussions about law domina