Mississippi Lacks Black Doctors, Even as Lawmakers Increasingly Target Diversity Programs

JACKSON, Miss. — Jerrian Reedy was 9 when his father was admitted to the hospital in Hattiesburg, about two hours northeast of New Orleans, after sustaining three gunshot wounds. Reedy recalled visiting his dad in the intensive care unit that summer in 2009, even though children weren’t typically permitted in that part of the hospital. “Just seeing him laid up in bed, in a hospital bed, it was traumatizing, to say the least,” Reedy said. His father died within a week of being admitted, in the middle of a nine-month span when Reedy also lost an aunt and a grandmother. “They say death comes in threes,” he said. That chain of events prompted him to pursue a career in medicine, one that might help him spare other children from losing loved ones too soon. Fifteen years later, Reedy has completed his first year at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine — a remarkable feat, and not only because his career path was born of grief and trauma. Reedy is among a small share of Black medical school students in a state where nearly 4 in 10 people — but only 1 in 10 doctors — identify as Black or...