Erma Freeman went to the dentist for the first time at the age of 21 because she had a toothache.  Growing up in the Concord community of Chase City, she says her family was poor and could only afford dental care to relieve pain.  After spending most of her educational years in segregated environments, little did Freeman know that her path through higher education would lead her to become the first Black woman to graduate from the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Dentistry. 

“Going to school was my passion,” Freeman said. “The opportunity fell in my lap, and I couldn’t say no.”

The Diversity and Unity Council at VCU Health Community Memorial Hospital asked Erma L. Freeman, D.D.S., to share her experiences with employees last month. 

Breaking barriers in recently desegregated classrooms

After graduating from St. Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Freeman completed a master’s degree at Virginia State University in biology and became a teacher in Lynchburg.  Only when she reached graduate school did Freeman say she sat in integrated classes and experienced cultural challenges. 

After teaching four years in Lynchburg, Freeman was recruited to join the 1973 freshman class at VCU School of Dentistry. Freeman says that while VCU was concerned about diversity fifty years ago, not everyone shared that sentiment. 

“This college had a more unfamiliar and challenging testing style than I had experienced at Saint Paul’s College or VSU,” Freeman said. “It took a while to make the adjustment. I didn’t have very much time to focus on gender or color, however, because demands for weekly tests or projects were often overwhelming.”

While the student body was minimally diverse, there were no Black nor women faculty members.

“There was a total of nine females in 1973, seven of which were in the freshman class,” Freeman said. “Some people were more upset about us being female than about me being Black.”

Freeman says she endured snide comments throughout her education and career that she’ll never forget, such as having been told she was “at risk” and “wouldn’t make it.”  She was motivated by that negativity and determined not to fail. 

Freeman recalls being encouraged by a professor during her third year to take more time to focus on her appearance, which was beginning to show signs of stress and was so unlike the way she had always looked initially.  He impressed upon her to not allow the academic demands to cause her to neglect her health nor her appearance. She was so overwhelmed by the compassion he showed, she held back the tears until she could get to the restroom. 

Once her classmates got to know her, many accepted her. She bonded with her lab group as well as some of the older students, who like her, had enrolled in dental school after having had other careers.  She keeps in touch with some of them. She was known to some as “one of the guys.” 

“When I graduated, one professor came up to me and said I was the person he least expected to graduate,” Freeman said. “While it was definitely not complimentary; I sincerely believe he meant that as a compliment.” In 1977, she made history by becoming the first Black woman graduate of VCU School of Dentistry.

Caring for the whole person, not just their teeth

Freeman’s work experiences after dental school took her across the commonwealth of Virginia, starting out in Richmond and then opening her own practice in Ettrick for 20 years.   She has fond memories of her staff and patients during that chapter of her professional career.  She served as a dentist for the Virginia Department of Corrections for a short time prior to opening her own dental practice, and again, for 13 years after selling her practice in 1999.

While on the job, people who were incarcerated often entered the dental clinic and directed an issue to her dental assistant, assuming the white female was the dentist. Nodding toward Freeman, she recalls the assistant saying, “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Dr. Freeman.”  Freeman describes the 13 years she worked in the state prison system as a form of “ministry” that she loved.  She was not only teaching incarcerated individuals about dental health, but she would look at the whole person and tried to help their mental health as well. 

“Many learned to treat me with the same respect I treated them,” Freeman said.

The first year of her career, Freeman was a part-time adjunct faculty member at VCU School of Dentistry’s Department of Community Dentistry, serving as a supervisor to dental students at a local Boys and Girls Club in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood. She was also involved with more than a dozen community organizations and advisory boards, including the Virginia Board of Dentistry. When former Governor L. Douglas Wilder appointed her to the board in 1993, Freeman became the first Black female dentist to ever serve on it.  

She received numerous awards by the Old Dominion Dental Society and was honored by the Peter B. Ramsey Dental Society in Richmond, VA as a “pioneer.”  Freeman notes that she was publicly acknowledged and honored as the first African American female graduate of VCU School of Dentistry for the first time by the university in a 2019 Trailblazer Award as part of VCU’s “First 100 Dentists of Color” initiative. 

Sheldon Barr, president of CMH, thanked Freeman for taking time to share her inspiring story with CMH team members. 

“We’re talking about health equity and everything you’ve said helps us learn to be better caregivers,” Barr said. “You’ve filled our buckets.”

The CMH Dental Services team got to meet Freeman and listened to her story.