Rachel Boone Keith (May 30, 1924 – January 4, 2007) was an American physician, born in Liberia.

Early life

Rachel Hannah Celestine Boone was born to American Baptist medical missionaries

Clinton Caldwell Boone Clinton Caldwell Boone (9 May 1872 –1939) was an African-American Baptist minister, physician, dentist, and medical missionary who served in the Congo Free State and Liberia. The son of Rev. Lemuel Washington Boone and Charlotte (Chavis) Boone ...

and Rachel Allen Tharps Boone, in

Monrovia, Liberia Monrovia () is the capital city of the West African country of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic coast and as of the 2008 census had 1,010,970 residents, home to 29% of Liberia’s total population. As th ...

. She was raised in

Richmond, Virginia (Thus do we reach the stars) , image_map = , mapsize = 250 px , map_caption = Location within Virginia , pushpin_map = Virginia#USA , pushpin_label = Richmond , pushpin_m ...

, where she graduated from Armstrong High School in 1938; that year she moved to Rhode Island to live with an aunt, physician Bessie B. Tharps. She graduated from

Houghton College Houghton University is a private Christian liberal arts college in Houghton, New York. Houghton was founded in 1883 by Willard J. Houghton and is affiliated with the Wesleyan Church.

in 1943, and earned a medical degree at

Boston University School of Medicine The Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, formerly the Boston University School of Medicine, is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. Founded in 1848, the medical school was the first institution in the world ...

in 1949. Boone completed further medical training at

Harlem Hospital Harlem Hospital Center, branded as NYC Health + Hospitals/Harlem, is a 272-bed, public teaching hospital affiliated with Columbia University. It is located at 506 Lenox Avenue in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City and was founded in 1887. The hosp ...

and at

Coney Island Hospital The hospital's Behavioral Health Clinic Coney Island Hospital is a public teaching hospital located in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York City. It is owned by NYC Health + Hospitals, a public benefit corporation of the city. ...

. She moved to Detroit in 1951.

Career

Boone worked two years at

Detroit Receiving Hospital Detroit Receiving Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, is the state's first Level I Trauma Center. Receiving's emergency department treats more than 105,000 patients annually, and nearly 60% of Michigan's emergency physicians are trained at Receiving. ...

, and joined the staff at Detroit Memorial Hospital in 1954, had a private internal medicine practice for many years, and served on the Michigan Board of Medicine, and was active with the Detroit chapter of the

NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...

and other organizations. She was also a prominent member of Detroit's Tabernacle Baptist Church. She and Judge Keith were guests at Detroit's Bal Africain, an art benefit event, in 1973, including dinner with the Tanzanian ambassador,

Paul Bomani Paul Lazaro Bomani (January 1, 1925 – April 1, 2005) was a Tanzanian politician and ambassador to the United States and Mexico. Biography Paul Bomani was born in 1925 in Ikuzi, Mara. He served as the Minister of Finance, Agricultur ...

Personal life and legacy

In 1953, Rachel Boone married a lawyer,

Damon Keith Damon Jerome Keith (July 4, 1922 – April 28, 2019) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and a former United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern Distr ...

, who became a noted federal judge. They had three daughters: Cecile, Debbie, and Gilda. Rachel Boone Keith died in 2007, aged 83 years, in Detroit. Congressman

John Conyers John James Conyers Jr. (May 16, 1929October 27, 2019) was an American politician of the Democratic Party who served as a U.S. representative from Michigan from 1965 to 2017. The districts he represented always included part of western Detroit. ...

gave a tribute to Keith in the ''

Congressional Record The ''Congressional Record'' is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, published by the United States Government Publishing Office and issued when Congress is in session. The Congressional Record Inde ...

'' soon after her death. Later that year, she was honored posthumously with a LifeLine Award from the

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

School of Nursing. Her papers are held, along with her husband's, in the

Walter P. Reuther Library The Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, located on the campus of Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, contains millions of primary source documents related to the labor history of the United States, urban affai ...

at Wayne State University. There is a Rachel Boone Keith Prize Fund at the Boston University School of Medicine, to provide support for African-American women medical students at the school.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Keith, Rachel Boone 1924 births 2007 deaths American expatriates in Liberia 20th-century American women physicians 20th-century American physicians African-American physicians Boston University School of Medicine alumni Houghton University alumni 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women