Alyce Chenault Gullattee

Alyce Chenault Gullattee (June 28, 1928 – April 30, 2020) was an American psychiatrist, medical school professor, activist, and expert on addiction.

Alyce Chenault Gullattee
Alyce Chenault Gullattee, from a 1971 issue of Essence magazine.
Born	Alyce Vantoria Chenault June 28, 1928 Detroit, Michigan U.S.
Died	April 30, 2020(2020-04-30) (aged 91) Rockville, Maryland U.S.
Occupation(s)	Physician, psychiatrist, addiction specialist

She was a faculty member in the psychiatry department at Howard University College of Medicine for over fifty years.

Early life and education

Alyce Vantoria Chenault^[1] was born in Detroit, Michigan, one of the twelve children of Earl Chenault and Ella Bertha McLendon Chenault.^[2] Her father worked in the automobile industry.^[3] She graduated from Northern High School in Detroit in 1946.^[4] She earned a bachelor's degree in zoology at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1956,^[1] and a medical degree at Howard University in 1964, with residencies at St. Elizabeths Hospital and George Washington University Hospital, both in Washington, D.C. She was a member of Zeta Phi Beta, a Black sorority.^[5][6]

Career

In 1952, Gullattee worked at the Southwest Settlement House in Washington, D.C., and started a supervised playground program.^[7] Gullattee joined the faculty of Howard University in 1970, in the department of neuropsychiatry.^[8] She was director of the university's Institute on Drug Abuse and Addiction. She was also a clinical professor at Howard University Hospital.^[5] She was known to visit active addicts directly, bringing them to the hospital for further treatment, even knitting a baby blanket for an addicted patient's newborn son.^[9] She also consulted on psychiatric matters for the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Arlington County, Virginia.^[10] She served on the board of trustees of Wesleyan University, on the National Medical Association's Drug Committee, and on several White House drug task forces. She had a long association with the NAACP, in various local leadership positions in California.^[4][5]

Gullattee was a founder and first president of the Student National Medical Association. She was called as a consultant to the scene of the Attica Prison violence in 1971.^[2][4][5] She was a speaker at a conference on Black Women at the University of Louisville in 1974; "I believe that the role of the female as an agent of change has been overlooked," she explained.^[11] In 1983, she was head of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services Administration (ADASA) of the city of Washington, D.C.,^[12] and was a speaker at the first National Conference on Black Women's Health Issues, held at Spelman College.^[13]

In 1989, she was in the news concerning a police report on the cocaine addiction and overdose hospitalizations of Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry.^[14][15] She denied that she had made any such report.^[16]

Personal life and death

Alyce Chenault married educator Latinee Gullattee in 1948, in Santa Barbara. They had four children,^[17] including daughters Deborjha and Aishaetu. She suffered a stroke in February 2020, and died from COVID-19 in Rockville, Maryland, on April 30, 2020, at age 91.^{[3][4][5][18]}