60 years ago — January 7,1957
“Dr. Deborah Coggins, who was recently put out as health officer for Madison County, Florida, joined her husband in the practice of medicine in Madison at the beginning of the new year. … Dr. Coggins lost her job because she had lunch one day in a private dining room with two nurses whose work she supervised. One of them was a Negro. They met to try to deal with the critical midwife situation that exists in Madison County where there are not enough doctors to care for the delivery of babies being born there.”
The Cogginses are Presbyterians and many in the church took a stand in support of them including Robert Browning (a county health educator) and T.C. Merchant Jr. of the local newspaper. Alas, Browning was fired from his job for his stand and the newspaper withstood pressures. Merchant’s plea in print stood on the fundamental American right to exercise freedom of speech: “If this is destroyed for anyone, he said, it is endangered for all.”
From “Ousted Madison physician begins private practice” by Aubrey Brown
