July 13, 2009

President Barack Obama nominated Alabama’s Dr. Regina Benjamin to the office of U.S. surgeon general on this day in 2009. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Oct. 29, 2009, becoming the 18^th American to hold the position and first African American woman. Alabama physicians Luther Terry and David Satcher previously were surgeon generals. Mobile native and UAB graduate Benjamin in 1995 had become the youngest person and first black female appointed to the American Medical Association board of trustees. She was surgeon general until 2013 before resigning to open a rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin, attending a meeting in Geneva in 2011, focused on the World Health Organization’s first Global Status Report on Noncommunicable Diseases. (U.S. Mission Geneva, Wikipedia)

President Barack Obama with Regina Benjamin, Alabama physician nominated for the position of surgeon general of the United States, July 13, 2009. (Lawrence Jackson, Wikipedia)

Official portrait of U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, Nov. 10, 2009. (Office of the Surgeon General of the U.S., Wikipedia)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.