Shaw University-Louise Cecelia Fleming was a graduate of Shaw University in
Raleigh, NC, and she was the first Black woman to graduate from the Women’s Medical College at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Louise Celia "Lulu" Fleming MD
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Louise Cecelia Fleming was a graduate of Shaw University in
Raleigh, NC, and she was the first Black woman to graduate from the Women’s Medical College at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

She was born enslaved on January 28, 1862 to enslaved parents on Col. Lewis Michael Fleming's Hibernia Plantation in Hibernia, Clay County, Florida.

Her father is unknown; she was raised by her mother who served as a maid in the plantation house. As a child she travelled along with her owners and her mother to Jacksonville, Florida to attend Bethel Baptist Church, which in 1859 had a membership of 40 Whites, and 250 Black enslaved people.
In 1865, immediately after the Civil War, the White and Black members of the church separated and formed their own congregations.

Lulu Fleming completed her basic education and trained to become a teacher. She first taught in public schools near St. Augustine, Florida. In 1880 a visiting Brooklyn, New York minister, impressed by her knowledge of scriptures and her teaching, encouraged her to attend Shaw University in North Carolina. Fleming graduated from Shaw as class valedictorian on May 27, 1885.

"In her final six (6) months of schooling at Shaw University, she became interested in the work of the American Baptist Convention through its foreign mission society. She began seeking an appointment through the Women’s American Baptist Foreign Missionaries Society to serve as a missionary to Africa.

This was highly unusual, in that there had never been an African-American woman appointed by the society. She wrote a number of letters to the leaders of the board of the society, pleading with her cause and desire to serve the Lord on the African continent. Despite return letters, which were less than
encouraging, she continued until she finally received an interview. She so impressed members of the board at that interview, that they immediately began looking for a place for her service.

In May, 1886, she was appointed by the Women’s American Baptist Foreign Missionaries Society to serve as a first missionary to the Congo. She also was the first African-American women appointed by the society. After an arduous journey, she ended up at Palabala Station, Congo Free State (now Zaire), Southwest Africa.

A photograph of this young lady shows a face which reflects strength, beauty, intelligence and foresight. She wrote numerous letters home to the people who sent her there to make them aware of what it was like in service in this new area for Baptists.

In an article which appears in The Baptist Missionary Magazine of The American Baptists Missionary Union in 1888, she described a day at Palabala, Congo:

“This is a second station from the coast, in the stations above get supplies from here. We are on a plateau 1700 feet above sea level, and are in the clouds up until a late hour some
mornings. The mornings have been very cold here now as this is the cold season. The community has made it seem like home and this has been a pleasant surprise to me. I have never felt better than since I’ve come here. Our “family of children” consists of nine girls and 18 boys. I have full
charge of the girls and enjoy them very much. We are having a new house go up, one end of which is to be used as a school and chapel, and the other to be the girls’ and my rooms.”

She goes on to suggest that they imagine what it is like to spend the typical days on the mission field and describes it with great clarity and understanding for the people who had sent her there. She also concludes, “the Lord give us patience to train them.”

In her numerous letters back home, she continues to inform Dr. Murdock of the American Baptist Historical Society, and the others she writes to about her progress, and the efforts in the area. She notes it is much easier to have the young boys and men come to know the Lord and be willing to learn, then it is the young girls. She recognizes this as the culture of the area and that it will take more effort to reach the
girls.

She also begins sending students back to Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. The first of whom go back in 1888. In an article in The American Baptist Missionary Union, it has the pictures of two of the young men sent back along with a young lady. She describes them as Estey Carolina, an orphan of about 14, but uncertain as to her age. She lived with her half-sister, who was cruel to her after the death of her father. She was also sent back with her brother, who is in the picture, for education, along with another friend of her brother’s. The assistance was arranged by King Noso of the Congo, but the King attempted to change his mind and marry Estey.

She ran away, and so Ms. Fleming decided to send her to
Shaw with her brother and other friends as soon as possible. She planned to have them study for six (6) years and then return as missionaries to help their people in that part of the world. Henry Stevens is the brother who went with Estey Carolina.

He was a little bit older, about 18. He was a gifted speaker and churches in North Carolina were greatly interested in having them come visit and give information about the people of the Congo. He also spoke in a number of churches in the Washington, D. C., Philadelphia and other parts of the eastern part of the United States.

The young friend was Robert Walker. Robert had been a slave to King Noso. The King had treated him cruelly and thanks to the work of Louise Fleming, she convinced the King to free him from the bondage he kept him in. During the night after being united, Robert Walker ran away.
Again, Louise Fleming took a chance and later travelled to England and met with Dr. Guiness, and helped him arrange a grammar for the Congo language so they could come back home and teach. Which they did.

This was the typical approach to her mission effort. She was training and teaching in the field, but also finding some young people who she thought should be further educated and then come back to their homeland.

Dr. Thomas E. Skinner sent reports back to Ms. Fleming to inform her of the student’s progress and that they told him they expected to go back to Africa as missionaries.
At her work was progressing, Lulu Fleming suddenly had a debilitating illness and had to return home for
treatment.

She returned to Raleigh, North Carolina and began recuperating. In the meantime, Dr. Tupper had started Leonard College of Medicine at Shaw University. While Lulu Fleming was recuperating, she realized that the people in the mission field in the Congo where she was working needed medical attention desperately. So, she began to study medicine at Shaw.

Shaw was relatively new and ill-equipped to truly train her at this stage so with the assistance of the American Baptist Missionary Society; she was permitted to study medicine with the Society paying her tuition at the Women’s Medical College at Philadelphia. That is now the well-known Medical College of Pennsylvania located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Again, she broke new ground when she attended Women’s Medical College of Philadelphia as the first African-American female to attend that school. She completed her education and training in1895 and was prepared to go back to the field for service now as a medical missionary.

During the time of preparation for her return, Dr. Fleming was not only petitioning, the board for her own return to the field as a medical missionary, she also recommended for appointment by the board, the American Missionary Society board, one of her young men from the Congo, a “Crowned Prince” of Palabala, with training in carpentry and farming, with a desire to do mission work among his own people.
She attached a copy of his letter, requesting appointment, which is written in a beautiful calligraphy and in perfect English. She succeeded in getting him an appointment and at the same time the board appointed
her to return.

On October 2, 1895, the Women’s Missionary Foreign Mission Society assigned her to be stationed at Irebu in the Upper Congo. There, she undertook to provide medical care as a medical missionary for a large geographic area. The work was undaunting and at times, overwhelming, but the people of this area had never had a medical doctor with he kind of training she had, let alone an AfricanAmerican woman. In 1898, approximately three (3) years later, the Irebu Station was closed and she was reassigned to the Bolengi Station. She again undertook long hours of arduous work to provide the necessary medical skills to treat people and to train young men and young women to assist in treating
people so that they would learn as best they could what needs to be done for their people who become ill
or injured.

It was during this period of time that she became ill with what is known as African Sleeping Sickness. It was shortly before the end of her second term and therefore was reluctantly returned to the United States early. While she was attempting to recuperate in and near the hospital and medical school in
Philadelphia, her illness turned for the worse. She died on June 20, 1899. she was 37 years old. "

*NOTE: Estey Carolina, arrived at Shaw in 1888 she was thought to be about 14 years old. In a 1893-1894 Shaw University catalog, on page 11, Esty Carolina Fleming of Palabala, West Africa, is listed as a First year student in the Missionary Training School.

Source: Shaw University Catalog 1893-1894 :https://www.shawu.edu/.../Di%20Copy.../1893-94%20Catalog.pdf

Source: The Missionary Journey Of Louise Celia "Lulu" Fleming MD by Joseph R Moss - https://floridabaptisthistory.org/.../08/lulu_fleming.pdf

Sources: Wikipedia -
Black women in America. Hine, Darlene Clark. (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.