County of Kent recently issued the following announcement.
Loney Clinton Gordon attended Michigan State College and earned a bachelor’s degree in home economics and chemistry in 1939. After facing harsh discrimination working as a dietitian in Virginia, Clinton Gordon began working at the Michigan Department of Health’s Grand Rapids laboratory in 1944. She began working with Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering as the only Black woman on the research team at the Western Michigan Laboratories. Clinton Gordon was able to isolate the virulent strain of pertussis that allowed the team to eventually develop an even more effective vaccine against Whooping Cough.
The three women make up a bronze statue in front of the Michigan State University Research Center in downtown Grand Rapids.
Original source can be found here.
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