Zenobia Gilpin

Zenobia Gilpin (born about 1898 – June 11, 1948) was an American physician and clubwoman, and "one of the best known citizens of Richmond". An African-American physician during the Jim Crow era, she provided medical services to underserved black communities. Actor Charles Sidney Gilpin was her cousin. She graduated from Howard University in 1920, and from Howard University College of Medicine in 1923.

Career Gilpin had a medical practice in Richmond, and organized clinics at Black churches in the city. She was the first Black woman doctor on the staff of Children's Memorial Clinic. She served on the City Lunacy Commission, and on the board of directors for the Phillis Wheatley branch of the YWCA. From 1936 until her death, she was secretary of the St. Philip Hospital Clinic. She chaired the Richmond chapter of Planned Parenthood. During World War II, she worked in the student clinic at Hampton Institute, presided over a fundraising concert, and organized a nutrition program for Richmond homemakers, to maximize healthy meals under rationing.

Gilpin was active in the NAACP and Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. In 1932, on her way home from attending the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she was honored in Chicago at a luncheon hosted by fellow Black doctor Lillian Singleton Dove.

Personal life and legacy Gilpin married educator Welton Hamlet Henderson in 1943. She died in 1948, in her late forties, at her Richmond home. A clinic was named in her memory, and more recently, Zenobia's Promise Foundation, founded in 2019 by the Upsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, was also named in her memory.