"Dr. Rosalie Reddick Miller" (1925-2005)

She was the first African American woman dentist to practice in the State of Washington.She was born on December 29,1925 in Waycross Georgia.She attended the all-back public schools in Columbus Georgia and in 1946 received a B.A.degree from Fisk University in Nashville Tennessee. She enrolled at Meharry Medical College and received her D.D.S. in 1951.Returning to Columbus,Rosalie took over her father's dental practice and her husband,Dr.Earl V. Miller--who she married in 1947--began a practice of general medicine.During the early 1950s and before the civil rights movement,she and her husband fought discrimination and segregation in Nashville.She was an active participant in the struggle for voting rights and spearheaded a voter registration movement among blacks in the city.After moving with her husband in 1957 to the University of Iowa,she received a certificate in periodontology and he received board certification in urology.Rosalie served on the faculty teaching dental hygiene.In 1959 the Millers moved to Seattle.From 1964 until 1971 she practiced denistry in Seattle at the Group Health Dental Cooperative.Rosalie received a Masters in Public Health from the University of Washington in 1972 and for the next five years served as director of dental professor of Denstry at the University of Washington in the Department of Oral Medicine.