Photo by Sarah Soprano 

It was a story that Phebe Hayes grew up hearing from her grandmother – about the expulsion of the black doctors of New Iberia – but didn’t think she’d end up proving its accuracy to the next generation. Now retired from UL, the former dean of the College of General Studies and professor of Communicative Disorders feels she was educated to teach Iberia Parish and other communities about their lost African American histories.

What lead to the research discovering the unknown Black physicians of Iberia Parish?

After losing two close relatives, I decided to pursue research of my family history. I volunteered in the genealogy room of the Iberia Parish Library. That’s where I discovered a self-published book by the medical society about great physicians of Iberia Parish from 1859-1959. It omitted the service of black physicians whom I knew practiced during that time – four of them I later discovered were women. I could only imagine their reaction to reading that book.

And your research has led you to writing a book?

Yes, I now have a list of 20 black physicians who were born in and/or practiced in New Iberia between Reconstruction and the end of the Jim Crow Era and am working on a book for UL Press that tells their stories and includes photos, which I’m currently looking for.

What do you hope to accomplish with the book?

There’s a lot in danger of being forgotten. Children grow up knowing about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., but they don’t know about Louisiana’s first black physician Carlos J. Vital or Clerk of Court Adolph Wakefield or that Iberia Parish had 300 black Civil War veterans. It’s important for our children to also know of the history closest to home.

Tell me about the important work of the Iberia African American Historical Society – of which you now head.

It’s a nonprofit corporation whose mission is to research the history of African Americans in Iberia, to teach their history to the community and commemorate their experiences. Last year, we applied for and got approval from the State Office of Tourism for the placement of a state historical marker in Bouligny Plaza commemorating the state’s first black female physician, Dr. Emma Wakefield, and another on French St. remembering the expulsion of four black physicians and the NAACP from Iberia Parish in 1944. The society raised $10,000 for the markers and to bring in speakers to teach the community of this unknown history.