NDA II: The Story of America's Second National Dental Association (review)

Organizations come and go. Some are organized for specific causes, some to solve problems, others for social reasons. Dental organizations are no different. As dentistry has developed and grown, so have organizations of dentists. Various words (association, society, federation, study club, academy and even foundation) identify them, each one picking out a group whose members have something in common, something so vital that the members are willing to give up precious time and hard-earned dollars to support the group's objectives. If the cause wanes, so does the organization. If a problem for which a society was formed disappears, so does the society.

One organization of dentists that had its start over 60 years ago was founded to help solve a problem. The problem was that some dentists found themselves unable to participate in any local or national dental organization for the purposes of their advancement and service to the public. In response, a few dedicated dentists formed a group of their own, so that they, too, could share in the continuing education, research and journalism of their profession. That group today is known as the National Dental Association.¹ NDA II: The Story of America's Second National Dental Association, by one of the most skillful writing teams in dentistry, Clifton O. Dummett, DDS and Lois D. Dummett, BA, chronicles the trials and tribulations of the dentists in the United States who are, by birth and/or heritage, African American or black-skinned.

As is clear from the title's use of the acronym NDA II, there was also an NDA I. The real history, though, may not be what you expect. The original NDA was formed in 1897 from the merger of two other dental associations: the American Dental Association (ADA), which was formed in 1856, and the Southern Dental Association, which was formed in 1869. The original NDA was intended to represent all American dentists. Internal reorganization led to the reactivation of the name American Dental Association in 1922. Regretfully, however, the new organization did not represent all American dentists. The tenor of the times, segregation, affected dentists as well as all other Americans, and African American dentists were still excluded from having a voice in an association claiming to represent all American dentists.

NDA II is the story of the efforts of many heroic dentists who pursued the right to be included as professionals in America's organized dentistry. The story is rich in detail and full of drama. Clifton Dummett, having been Editor of the Journal of the National Dental Association for 22 years, and Lois Dummett, having served as its Assistant Editor for many of those years, are unusually qualified to write such a book. The Dummetts have been able to draw on resources that are familiar to them not only as editors but also personally, as they have lived through much of what they describe in the book's eighteen chapters. Their skills and behind-the-scenes knowledge of events have resulted in an accurate accounting of the facts.

Every dentist and, most certainly, every dentist who is active or aspiring to leadership in organized dentistry, should read this volume because it documents a chapter of American dentistry that few know and even fewer realize occurred in their own community. Few, if any, of we who entered the practice of dentistry in the early forties and later can imagine the devastating consequences of the barriers facing African American physicians and dentists who sought to join the official national societies of their professions.

The focus of NDA II is on the dedicated African American dentists who took a path of their own and strode toward making it feasible for an African American to enter dental school, obtain licensure, open a practice, have a voice in shaping his or her own profession, belong to an organization of health professionals, and become a leader in the profession...