Emma Wakefield-Paillet

Emma Wakefield-Paillet (November 21, 1868 – August 26, 1946) was an American physician. Wakefield-Paillet was the first African-American woman to graduate from medical school and to practice medicine in Louisiana.

Biography Wakefield-Paillet was born on November 21, 1868, in New Iberia, Louisiana, the fourth child of Samuel Wakefield and his wife, Amelia Valentine Wakefield. The family fled New Iberia not long after her younger brother was lynched and the family home was terrorized by a mob of angry white citizens. They settled in New Orleans. Later, she became the first African American woman in the state to work as a physician, when she opened her own medical practice in New Orleans by 1898. In 1900, she moved to San Francisco, where she was married to Joseph Oscar Paillet. Also in 2018, a historical marker describing her significance was erected by historian Phebe Hayes and the Iberia African American Historical Society (IAAHS).