Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence became the first African-American woman to practice psychoanalysis in the United States. While growing up in New York, she was very focused on her education and earned a full scholarship to Cornell in 1932. After graduating, she received multiple rejections from medical school and internships based on her race. She eventually attained an internship at Harlem Hospital where she realized the connection between poverty and public health. She decided to pursue child psychiatry to serve her local community. In 1953, she became Rockland County’s first child psychiatrist and remained devoted to assisting underprivileged children until she retired at the age of 90.
Dr. Margaret Morgan Lawrence, PhD
Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst