A Case for Inclusion
The National Dental Association’s Perspective Pamela Alston, DDS, MPP, FACD President, National Dental Association Nathan Fletcher, DDS, FACD Chairman of the Board of Trustees, National Dental Association
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his paper examines the value of inclusion in organized dentistry from the perspective of the National Dental Association (NDA). It is significant that the NDA is making the case for inclusion because the NDA was excluded for generations from joining majority dental organizations. Even after membership was extended to join such organizations, the NDA had to fight to participate. There is a “big picture” to inclusion. Dentistry is at a critical juncture. It cannot meet its social contract to promote health equity, tackle oral health disparities and improve oral health outcomes among those with the greatest needs without the meaningful inclusion of minority dental organizations. Failure to include them weakens dentistry as a profession.
Journal of the American College of Dentists
THE NDA’S PURSUIT OF MEMBERSHIP IN ORGANIZED DENTISTRY Historians Dr. Clifton O. and Lois Doyle Dummett observed at the beginning of the twentieth century, “Regardless of race, American dentists looked to the future of their profession with earnest determination to foster the art and science of dentistry, to support dental research, to elevate dental professional education, and to cultivate dental journalism. Organized dentistry was the instrument of choice to achieve laudable objectives.” Yet African American dentists were barred from membership in organized dentistry solely due to skin color for many generations. The National Dental Association (NDA) was formed to give African American dentists our own organization for continuing professional development as well as for fighting for oral health, racial and educational equity. The leaders of the NDA continued to challenge the racially based membership restrictions of the American Dental Association and its component organizations until they were removed. Dr. Clifton O. Dummett wrote, “…the inability to attend professional meetings and gain scientific knowledge therefrom, the failure to see and discuss cases of scientific interest with large numbers of colleagues of varied experience, the restraints upon free intellectual intercourse, the inability to hold professional discourse with research scientists and highly trained scientific persons, the taboos against mutual inter-racial referral—these are 48
