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Clifton Orrin Dummett, Sr. -- Content of Character

Michael M. Okuji, DDS, MPH, MBA

Michael M. Okuji, DDS, MPH, MBA, is an assistant clinical professor in the Division of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Epidemiology at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry. He is also in private practice in San Francisco.

Copyright 2003 Journal of the California Dental Association.

"Doctor Dooo-Mitt ...," Meharry’s President M. Don Clawson has difficulty in pronouncing the name correctly and persistently repeats the error. Dean Clifton O. Dummett, not yet 30 years old, stands to address the assembled dental and medical faculty. Dummett wears a tailored suit -- he’s never pictured in shirtsleeves -- a white pocket square, a swirl of linen worn with the same panache and flair with which he wields a pen; and a signature bow tie. His eyes have a focus that is often mistaken for a sign of disapproval. "Since I respectfully disagree on principle with my president, I hereby tender my resignation as dean of Meharry Dental School, effective immediately." So ends the tenure of the youngest dean ever appointed to an American dental school.

On this hot and humid Nashville afternoon, Clawson gives his full support to the Southern Regional Plan. The plan provides desperately needed financial support to Meharry Medical College and its Dental School but would designate Meharry a regional school to educate exclusively the Negro population of the Southern states. The plan is promulgated by the governors of 11 Southern states to maintain institutional segregation in all Southern professional schools.¹

It is clear to Dummett that the doctrine of separate but equal even with the emoluments of financial salvation is to be opposed. He concludes that no additional Southern segregated dental schools should be constructed. He insists that Meharry and his colleagues join the mainstream of professional education at the highest levels. It is June 1949 in the Jim Crow South. It is five years before Brown v. Board of Education. It is 14 years before a Southern governor stands in the schoolhouse door on a principle. Dummett makes his stand on a different principle.

On this June afternoon, in this Nashville auditorium, he is a solitary voice against separate but equal. He must resign on a principle. A principle that with the passage of time will prove to be right. His stance on principle is far from popular with his colleagues. "My basic philosophy regarding regional schools ... my adverse opinions of racially separate regional schools are contrary to general opinion."²

Why did he walk away from the opportunity of a lifetime? What about the financial security of his young wife, Lois, and baby boy, Clifton, Jr.? Where was his contingency back-up job? W. Montague Cobb of Howard University writes that this was "the first time in my recollection that a Negro in a position comparable to yours has resigned his job on a matter of principle"³

He did so because expediency is not Dummett’s forte. In 1949, the secretary of the American Dental Association’s Council on Dental Education rebuked Dummett by writing that "in pursuit of your ideal ... you overlook reality and stand practically against the present needs of your people ... In this matter, you are an idealist and I am a realist."⁴ For idealist, read dreamer.

Idealist? Dreamer? Rather, Dummett is a visionary; a man willing to bear rebuke, remonstration, and rejection. If you will, one of the great men of our era. Great? One might say that he lost more battles than he won. But, a look across the decades shows that he really did not lose battles. He has mounted sieges that continue today. Where there are no doors to break down, he has breached walls. It is not his voluminous accomplishments but his character that makes him great.

To many students and faculty today, he remains a familiar but opaque figure, an eminence grise. They recognize him but don’t know him. Yet, aspects of his character are all around us.

Just as Dummett was the sole administrator at Meharry who was a publicly outspoken critic of segregated regionalization,⁵ he was equally outspoken for the abolition of segregated professional associations. While physicians and nurses freely admitted Negroes to their associations, many southern American Dental Association constituent societies were most adamant in their collective opposition to accepting Negro dentists and did everything in their power to prevent, forestall, and discourage membership. The system of attaining full ADA membership was easily manipulated by any group desirous of discriminatory practice. And with equal candor, Dummett countenanced dismantling the National Dental Association and melding its members into a greater society of healers and scientists.⁶ Separate but equal in any form is anathema to him.

His view on the need for greater opportunities for Negroes in dentistry and its solution was prescient and is probably just as unpopular today in some quarters. In 1947, there were 313 Negro dental students, most of them at Howard University and Meharry. In 1948, he pointed out the urgent need for immediate action to increase the numbers of qualified Negro applicants for admission to all U.S. dental schools and to expand their opportunities at all levels of dental education.⁷ Fifty-two years later, in the first year of the new millennium, the total African American dental student enrollment is 832.⁸

But, Dummett is not an apologist for baseless preferences or shoddy work. "I have examined the applications of past, present, and prospective students at one of the two Negro dental schools; and it is my opinion that too large a number of the applicants had received inferior preparatory work. ... It is hardly to be advocated that such students be admitted on an educational basis different from that of other, better-qualified students. ... The solution to this problem would be to improve the preparatory training of the Negro students so that they would be able to compete scholastically with all other students."⁹ And in 2002, the American Dental Education Association’s 5th Minority Recruitment and Retention Conferences convened to address the same issue.

Dummett’s view on the health of the people is no less visionary and tinged with controversy. "Despite common stereotypes, America’s poor come in all colors, shapes, sizes, ages, origins, backgrounds, religions, and ethnicity. Their health needs are similar. Understanding the predicaments of the powerless poor is prerequisite to caring for their needs."¹⁰ And in 2002, we have the $11 million Center to Address Disparities in Children’s Oral Health at the University of California, San Francisco.

As for the inclusiveness of access to health care for all the peoples of the world, Dummett writes, "There is an additional aspect to this NDA (African) Program for which this writer has been praying, and this is the inclusion of other countries and nationalities in the NDA Program of help. There are millions that need dental help in (other parts of the world), as well as the African states. The concern then must be for all suffering humanity."¹¹

During his long siege breaching walls to bring his vision to reality, Dummett has endured disappointment and rejection.¹² Yet he has not become bitter. Slights and slurs don’t mark his visage. In fact, he’s quite magnanimous to his critics and foes in the many biographical pieces he has written.¹³ He observes, "Cynical indeed are those in whose hearts are not stirred great expectations for eventual and ultimate realization of every good for which democracy and America stand."¹⁴

However, never mistake his patrician demeanor and good nature for weakness. "Humility is not sycophancy. It does not embrace the toadying, groveling servility upon which intimidation and bullying thrive. True humility requires much intelligence and courage -- intelligence to distinguish what it is from what it is not; courage to foster what it is, to despise what it is not. The eventual goal of integration must be approached from many angles. Human relationships are involved so that there is no single answer or solitary method of achieving this goal. An attitude of gracious humility on the part of all concerned will act as a catalyst and will speed up the eventual solution of problems which must be alleviated if we are to live in peace and harmony."¹⁵ Dummett turns politeness into a form of politics.

We are all capable of remaining true to our principles. Nothing could be easier, nothing could be harder.

References

1. Dummett CO, Celebrating a centennial: A retrospective view. J Am Coll Dent 53(2):18-24, 1986.

2. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 119.

3. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 304

4. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 104

5. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 123

6. Dummett CO. Time out for clear thinking. Bulletin NDA 12(4):123, 1954.

7. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 113.

8. Sinkford JC, Harrison S, Valachovic RW, Underrepresented minority enrollment in US dental schools -- the challenge. J Dent Educ 65(6):564-74, 2001.

9. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, pp 115-6.

10. Newsmakers: Clifton Dummett Featured Speaker at Meharry’s Health Conference for the Poor. Meharry Medical College, January 1986, p 28.

11. Dummett CO, For all suffering humanity. Quarterly NDA 23(1):4, 1964.

12. Moore DG, Reply to Dec 10, 1941, letter from Dummett CO. (SGO 201), War Department, Office of the Surgeon General, Washington, DC, Dec 20, 1941.

13. Dummett CO, Dummett LD, Dental Education at Meharry Medical College. Meharry Medical College, Nashville, TN, 1992, p 125.

14. Dummett CO, Great expectations. Bulletin NDA 12(2):60, 1954.

15. Dummett CO, Humility in problem solving. Bulletin NDA 14(4):117, 1955.

To request a printed copy of this article, please contact: Michael M. Okuji, DDS, MPH, MBA, 490 Post St., Suite 1550, San Francisco, CA 94102 or mmokuji@cs.com.